


Poor Twisted Me

by MisterBroflovski



Series: Poor Twisted Me [1]
Category: Metallica
Genre: Abuse, Alcoholism, Depression, Emotional Abuse, Emotional Manipulation, Friendship, Hardship/Struggle, Multi, One-Sided Relationship, Pining, Rehabilitation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-03
Updated: 2017-04-01
Packaged: 2018-09-21 16:29:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 49,977
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9557216
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MisterBroflovski/pseuds/MisterBroflovski
Summary: After going through a major emotional and financial crisis, James Hetfield is left to live with himself and his mistakes. Turning to many different factors to help soothe his pain without admitting he needs the help, the only one that seems to be working is Jason Newsted. Unfortunately, James is too stubborn to let him in. And Jason may not have enough patience to wait until James opens his eyes.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I am very very excited about this work. It's gone through extensive, in depth planning, in a style of writing that is unfamiliar to me. I hope you enjoy reading as much as I'm enjoying writing !

All I can remember is her throwing my boots at me. 

Looking back I can hardly remember a word she said to me as she threw me on my sorry ass. What I do remember though, is being hit square in the jaw with the tread of my heavy, steel toed boot, after they both came flying out of her hands. Other than that, I don't remember shit. 

Probably because I was wasted. 

Or maybe because my brain was subconsciously blocking out painful memories, like the doctor would probably tell me. None of that makes any sense to me though, none. It all sounds like a sugar coat of, "You're a mental psychopath and you need to understand that." I only went to the doctor to make sure I didn't have a fracture or a broken tooth or something from that impact. 

I'm fine. Unfortunately. 

Now I'm just an asshole with a yellowing bruise on my face, and I don't want to admit to anyone that I got it from my girlfriend. No one would take me seriously. Somehow MTV found out about it and ratted me out. They don't know where it came from either, obviously, but the story they went with was,

"...Metallica frontman James Hetfield has been spotted recently with a bruised face, sources tell us that he got into a fistfight with a producer after 'creative differences'..."

They didn't show any pictures, thankfully. They should know the difference between a boot print and a fist, maybe they were just trying to make me feel better. 

Whatever it is, I'm pissed, and I want nothing to do with MTV until this all blows over. 

Maybe I'll let them back in when Reload comes out, but for now they have Load to suck on. It hasn't even been six months since it came out and already they're begging for more. It's all fucking Lars' fault too. Because he was the one who told them that Load had a twin that was coming out "soon". With none of us realizing that soon meant 'less than a year later', we were pissed. 

I open my eyes, begrudgingly, to look at the alarm clock. 

Four-thirty-two a.m. I can't read the little date on the left of the clock because there's a beer can in the way. There's at least another empty six pack littered around the floor, with my trash can parallel to my head. 

My stomach twists as I snatch the rim of the trash can and scramble into a sitting position, holding the trash can between my knees, and vomit. I've been curling the thin blanket around me for nearly half an hour trying to ignore the worsening nausea, but it finally got to me. 

I'd drowned my sorrows in beer, but of course it wouldn't be that easy. I just puked the beer back up and the sorrows were back too. 

I get up to wash the trash can out in the bathtub, and catch a glimpse of the light outside. 

The sun is already starting to rise, which seems way too fucking early. It also seems as though I haven't slept. Who can blame me, though? I can't sleep in some unfamiliar apartment. Sure, it's a relatively nice apartment, but it's not my bed. It's not my house, not my ceiling, not my floor. 

Not my bathtub I'm washing the trash can out in. Not my bathroom. 

I cringe. 

This seems like some sort of sick symbolism. Washing out the puke in a bathroom that doesn't belong to me, puke that derived from too much beer. 

Too much beer is what landed me in this unfamiliar bathroom in the first goddamn place. 

That's what hurts the worst. Trying to blame it on the beer when everyone and their fucking mother knows that it's me, my fault, I am one-hundred-percent to blame. 

I abused Francesca. 

Maybe not physically, but verbally, and emotionally. I hurt her and I fucking know that. Now at least. I had no clue I was doing anything wrong when we were together. I've never been on her side before. I've never had to try and love someone while they were constantly busy and constantly moving around the country. 

When she first started yelling, I thought it was because she didn't trust me, around all those girls all the time. I don't know why that was the first thing I thought, because if that were the case then she probably would've gotten pissed in a way where she wasn't sobbing. 

But she was sobbing, as she grabbed the remote control and clicked off the tv. I was ready to snap at her before I saw the tears on her cheeks. I don't remember what she said. Not a damn word. But I know it wasn't because she thought I was having an affair. I remember her smacking my chest as I got out of the chair to be at her level. I remember her screaming, with her finger pointed toward the front door. I remember not taking her seriously...we fought so much in the recent weeks that it didn't feel too severe. Boy was I fucking wrong, because the last thing I remember about yesterday night was her hands on my shoulders, then my ass on the ground. She quite literally pushed me out of her life and then threw my goddamn boots at me. 

Now she wants me to reimburse her. 

I called Lars after I laced up those boots (to my feet this time) at a street corner payphone. The only things I had on me when Francesca threw me out were my keys, my wallet and a lighter. A wallet that only had about two-hundred dollars in it, tons of loose change. 

As the phone rang, I prayed for Lars to pick up. 

"Who the fuck..?"

"Lars. It's James."

"James? What the fuck are you doing calling from an unknown number?"

"Gimme a second and I'll explain. Where are you now?"

"Me 'n Kirk are at the studio, aren't you supposed to be home right now?"

"I'm not so sure I have a home right now, Lars. I'll be there in a minute. I just wanted to know where you were."

Lars said something as I hung up the phone, but it didn't matter, just so long as he stayed in the same place. I walked back to the house, studied the window for a minute until I unlocked the truck and started toward the studio. 

When I got there, Lars and Kirk were waiting by the door like a couple of dogs. 

"Okay, so you wanna explain what the fuck this is about?" Lars said as I set my keys on the counter. 

"I think I've just been dumped," I said. 

Kirk blinked at me and leaned closer in his chair. "Dumped? Francesca kicked you out?" I grinned, and laughed. 

Painfully. 

"Yeah, she did. Threw my boots at me." I motioned to my boots. 

Lars made a face at the boots, and then looked back up at me. 

"What the fuck did you do?" 

My grin faded as I scratched the back of my neck. I didn't like where this had gone, not at all. So I walked around the counter and opened the fridge as I answered. 

"That's the thing,"

I grabbed a beer and shut the fridge. 

"I have no idea."

"James."

"....what?"

"I don't think you need a beer." 

"I've already had a few."

"You drove here drunk?"

Kirk's eyes widened dramatically as he said this. He practically leapt from the chair to take the beer from my hands. 

"What the fuck?"

"You don't need anything else to drink tonight dude. Get a water bottle or something. You're done."

I hated to admit it, but Kirk was probably right. I just wanted something to distract me from thinking about my situation. 

I spent the rest of the night there, listening to Lars and Kirk talk until I finally passed out on the couch. 

Today I woke up and left to visit the doctor. Nothing was wrong. 

I wanted to stay in the studio with them. The recording space wasn't fit with mattresses on the floor anymore, we got rid of those after 'Garage Days: Revisited'. So naturally, there wasn't much more than a couch and a recliner to sleep in. After realizing that I was going to have to stay either in an apartment or my dad's house, Lars handed me enough cash to pay for a night in an apartment building, because he didn't want me to stay in the studio with him and Kirk. Normally I would've been absolutely fucking livid that he would shove me off like that. But he obviously did it to help me feel more independent. 

And now here I am, sitting on the bathroom floor. I stand, with the support of the sink, and tear my shirt off. I'm left staring at myself in the mirror after washing my mouth out a couple times and running the cold water over my face. 

I want to sleep. But I don't want to sleep alone. 

I'll try to squeeze in a couple hours of sleep before I have to get up and face Lars again. I already know he's going to piss me off somehow and I'm not ready to deal with that shit. I'm not ready for Kirk to keep me away from the cases of beer. It's ruining my fucking life but I need it. 

Worst of all, when I wake up, I'm going to have to visit the bank, and draw out some apology money for my fucking ex-girlfriend. 

"I yelled at you when I was drunk and I never paid attention to you or your problems because I'm married to my work and Lars hates you. Sorry. Here's seventeen-thousand-dollars."

She wants seventeen fucking thousand. Why so specific and why so goddamn much I have no idea. But I know this is going to put an obscenely large dent in what I already owe to Blackened and Insurance. No doubt she's going to make me keep paying for the house insurance too. Probably her fucking car. By now she's going to use me for my money. 

I feel my guts churning again and grip the counter in case I vomit again. Luckily, nothing comes up. I shut off the light and toss myself back into the bed to try and enjoy my last few hours of wealth. 

 

I woke up with an absolutely crippling headache. I look at the alarm clock again, and it's a number I dread. 

A single digit. 

It's already one-thirty in the afternoon, and the bank would be closed in a couple hours. Groaning, I lift myself to my feet and return to the bathroom again. 

I've only been in this fucking room for a night and I've already littered the floor with clothes and beer cans. I feel like shit, absolute shit and my brain is pressing up against my skull. I wonder what sort of rotten look the lady at the desk is gonna give me when I tell her that I need to withdraw seventeen-thousand dollars from my account. I don't even see the point. Maybe she wants to buy a fucking motor home, I don't know. What the fuck does Francesca need with my money? She makes her own money! She can afford to pay for her shit by herself, especially after the push I've given her. I feel fucking disgusting knowing that she's using me for my wealth. But I know I can't just back out of paying her, or else she's going to take this to court and I'll be forced to give her my cash. 

I'll probably also be charged and then enrolled in rehab. Which is something that absolutely fucking terrifies me. 

I can't go to rehab now, absolutely not. Reload is about to come out and after that we're going to be fucking busy. Signings, meet and greets, then the tour. And I'm going to be dick-deep in debt. I only have a couple million dollars to my name at the moment, which might seem like a lot, but it really isn't compared to the rest of my band. I'm not trying to sound like an entitled asshole, but I have a lot of responsibilities that require out of pocket expenses. Out of my pocket. They just expect that I can cover the costs no problem. Not to mention that I was going to have to give reimbursement money to Blackened, too, to help us film the video for Until It Sleeps. Boy am I excited about that. 

It's going to cost millions, I can already tell. I swear to the good fucking lord, if I go broke paying for Lars' video, I'm going to wring his fucking neck. 

No you're not James.

You're not gonna do shit. You're Lars' bitch. 

I grind my teeth together thinking about it. 

I wash my hands and pick my dirty shirt up off the floor, the same shirt I've been wearing since before Francesca kicked me out. After replacing the rest of the ripe clothes, I close up the room and lock up. 

There's nothing else to do but go to the bank, I suppose. I hand Lars' wad of cash to the lady at the front desk of the motel and get out as soon as possible. The last thing I need is to be recognized at a time like this. 

I got to my truck without any call outs, thankfully, which was rare at home in California. I know fans by name here, fans that hang out in bars with me and Jason. They're good guys, but the last thing I need is some guy seeing me check tens of thousands of dollars out of the bank and transfer them to my fucking ex-girlfriends account. 

Maybe they'll just think I'm some sort of dogooder by giving her all that fucking money, maybe they'll know that she's a needy, greedy snake. Either way, I'm going to look like a total bitch. 

I walked through the glass doors of the bank and immediately felt out of place. I was surrounded by men in suits and women in heels, and I was standing there in a stained, grungy T-shirt and a pair of ripped jeans that no doubt had toothpaste on them somewhere. 

"Sir?"

The woman's mousy voice knocks me out of my fixated trance on some girl's long, long legs. 

"Yeah-uh...hi."

I walk closer to the desk and awkwardly toy with my pockets looking for my wallet. 

"I'm looking to uh...withdraw some funds," I say in the most awake voice I can pull together. I'm hungover, and I feel like I could blow chunks right in this poor girl's lap at any minute. 

"Alright sir, I'll need to see your ID and your account card."

Her sweetly saccharine voice worsens my nausea. I can't stand the way her nose upturns like Lars' or the pale blue of her eyes that look damn near identical to Francesca's. 

I feel like I'm getting what I deserve. 

I hand her the two cards and wait for her to process them so I can watch my life be flushed into Fran's bank account. 

"And how much would you like to withdraw today, Mr. Hetfield?" 

I bite the inside of my cheek at the sound of my own name. Usually; when I withdraw this type of cash, I have to have a written check sent to my house and then to the representatives at Blackened to run through it. But this time I'm praying they don't find out about the huge hole in my bank account. 

Instead of coming up with an excuse, I just..say it. Vaguely. 

"...seventeen," scratching the back of my neck. She blinks at me. 

"I'm sorry...seventeen..dollars?"

"Seventeen uh...seventeen thousand. Yes."

Her eyes dart down to the desk and then back to my ID. I can tell she has questions. 

"I-I'm uh...planning on buying a car for my...girlfriend. She didn't want me to buy it, so I wanted to transfer the money to her bank account so she can buy it."

Her confusion seems to have cleared, and I got my point of being here out of the way as well. 

"Ah, I see. Stubborn girlfriend."

I think I'm the stubborn girlfriend. 

"Ha, like a bull."

It takes nearly twenty minutes for me to get her to transfer the funds, but with the right amount of platonic, meaningless smalltalk, I've finally come up seventeen thousand short. 

I don't even ask her what my current balance is when I walk away. 

I feel empty and weak like a fucking soda can, flattened under her heels. 

The second I get back in my car I feel my stomach roar at me. It's threatening to release its contents if I don't get solid food in me soon. But the thought of eating is making my throat tighten. I rub my eyes and drop my forehead on the steering wheel for a while before finally turning the keys. Lars and Kirk have been staying at the studio for a pretty long time, they really only leave to get food. And without any producers there permanently, they were pretty much in solitude until me or one of the producers comes by to check on them. 

They'll be broken up whenever Jason comes back. He should be back by Tuesday, at least that's what he said before he got on the plane and left. Family business. Business that was none of my business. I didn't question where he was going, because I figured it would be intrusive to do that. 

I don't want him to come back on Tuesday. I'm not ready to tell him what happened. I'd probably look like a dickhead if I spewed my situation to him, groveling for his pity while I didn't even know what state he was in. And I knew Jason would sit and listen obsequiously while all this information would come flying at him. 

And then he'd do everything in his power to help. I don't want his fucking help. 

I'm pushing Jason out of my mind to forget about my weakness while I still can. 

I pull up to the studio and shut the door to my car in a rather violent manner. 

I open the front door with my bundle of keys and find my way to the kitchen again. Lars and Kirk are nowhere to be found, but I could hear Lars on the phone somewhere, and a high frequency humming coming from another room. 

I take my time to set my shit down, and find one of the free bathrooms. I reek. Terribly. I've been wearing the same outfit through drinking, puking, night sweats and hangover sweat. 

Hopefully there are some of my clothes here. Without Jason in close proximity, I might not have any Plan B for clothes that fit. Lars is too short and Kirk is too skinny. Maybe one of them has clothes they borrowed from me at some point. 

I strip down and stuff the clothes into a basket by the door, and shut it before one of them comes by. One of them will know I'm here when the water turns on, I hope at least. 

The water shocks my back with its disgusting freezing temperature, and I arch away from it as it warms up. I want to shower so fucking bad, I just want to wash away the past couple of days as best I can. Since we're only here every once in a while to record, practice and get drunk, all we have is a single, half empty bottle of Head-N-Shoulders, and Irish Spring body wash. No conditioner or face wash. That's fine, I guess. 

I nearly throw up halfway through my shower. The noise that ripples through my stomach sounds like hunger, horrible hunger. The last time I ate was the dinner before Francesca. Other than that, I've had pretzels and beer, all of which I've thrown up. 

When I come out of the bathroom, I have a towel around my waist and puddles around my feet. I realize that I forgot to take off my choker when I got in there. Oh well. 

Lars gives me a frustrated look from the counter. 

"When did you get here? Didn't even come say hi?"

"You were on the phone, and I reeked. Where's Kirk?"

"He locked himself in the sound booth and hasn't come out since like, eleven."

I pretty much completely disregard the information; I could've came to that conclusion myself. Kirk was like that. I just wanted to say something that wasn't about me. 

Lars is shoveling potato chips into his mouth and flipping through a magazine. There's food here, I reassure myself. Now I just need to find clothes. 

"D'you guys have any of my clothes here?"

"All our clothes are just kinda mixed together in those drawers back there," Lars points to the back room with a potato chip. "You're hardly ever here. I have no clue if your shit is in there."

Hopefully they at least have my underwear. 

The drawers aren't nearly as organized as I figured Kirk would keep them. My guess is none of his clothes are here. 

I find three pairs of boxers I don't recognize, but they look clean and about my size. I take all three and put them aside. Next I find Jason's jeans, free of rips and skinny legged, just how he liked them. Good enough for now. 

I'm assuming that the boxers I have around my waist are Jason's too. His pants are a bit of a tight fit but they'll make do for one day. I found one of Lars' artsy, expensive shirts somewhere near the bottom of the last drawer and pull it over my head. I'm sure he's not going to appreciate it one bit, but I couldn't care less. Just so long as I'm not walking around naked. It fit around me way less baggy than it did on Lars. I wasn't sure how to feel about that. 

By the time I go back to that apartment (hopefully with another wad of Lars' cash), I would have to take a couple days worth of clothes. 

I have no idea what tomorrow will hold for me. But Tuesday I'm gonna have to get Jason alone and explain. 

"Really? My shirt?"

"Fran still has all my shit. And there's no way in hell I'm going back to get it."

Lars seems to disregard it. 

"Did you give her her fuckin...seventeen thousand bucks?" He spits the words out like they were gravel. I know he's not fond of Fran, but...he seems extra angry now. Understandably so, it's taking me every ounce of me to pretend I'm not growing a special hatred for her. But I don't quite like his tone. 

"I did. I was at the bank before I got here." I sit next to Lars at the counter and turn the opening of the chip bag toward myself. "And?"

"And it was a pain in my ass," I put a curled fist to my mouth to hide the chewed up food as I spoke. 

"They try and question you?"

"I told her I was giving her money to buy a car."

"That's probably what she's gonna do with it any way. That or she's saving it like a trophy."

"She didn't destroy my life. I destroyed my own life."

"Bullshit. She ruined almost fucking everything for you and for us. All four of us. She bitched about you being gone all the time."

"But I was gone all the time. We were constantly busy."

"That should be a fuckin' given when you decide to date someone famous."

"I know, but-"

"But what? You love her? If you do you're a fucking dumbass,"

I'm scared of that being true. But to be honest, I don't know the answer to that either. 

"She obviously doesn't love you. She loves your money. She replaced you with a couple grand, that's how much you're worth to her."

Alright, that I could believe. But in all honesty, she shouldn't have even valued me at seventeen grand. I'm worth about as much as the trash can filled with water sitting in my new bathtub. 

When I didn't respond, Lars decided to talk some more. Go figure. 

"Don't be broken up about her, James. There's no point. You might have had some connection last year or so but I can tell it turned into meaningless sex."

Meaningless, maybe. But sex? That was rare under our roof. Painstakingly rare. The rarity of sex cratered holes of withdrawal in me, that I filled back up with alcohol. 

Maybe if I hadn't been such a douchebag to her I wouldn't have done that. There had to be a reason she didn't want to be involved with me like that. 

Maybe she was the one cheating on me. Whatever. It's over now. 

Whatever. It's over now. 

Over? No. It's not over. The relationship is over but I'll be damned to hell if I let myself live this way. As a self righteous, abusive piece of human garbage. 

"There was no sex. Virtually none."

Lars' eyebrows darted down in confusion. 

"'Virtually none'? What the fuck? If you were with her for so fuckin' long what did you do?"

Nothing. I spent more time with you than I did with her. 

"Not a whole lot of anything."

"Maybe she was just bored then."

"She didn't say she was bored."

"I thought you didn't remember what she said."

"I don't, but I know it wasn't that she was bored. I just assumed it was because I was never around."

Because I abused her. And I'd much rather not think about specific examples, out of fear I might do something to myself that I'll regret. 

"That still doesn't explain why she wanted your money."

"I'd rather not know about what she's going to do with it."

 

Lars and I were on the couch watching TV by the time Kirk came out of his seclusion. He was wearing one of my old shirts, no pants, and a pair of high riding socks. There was a red streak across the upper part of his right thigh, where a guitar must have been. 

He didn't seem to notice me when he walked into the kitchen. 

He's coming back with a bowl of cereal and sits down in the recliner left of Lars. 

"Shit, James, when did you get here?" 

"'Bout an hour ago." I say, simply. I don't turn my attention away from the TV. It's on a show about some nymphomaniac running away with her stepdad. Pretty fucked up if you ask me, but Lars seemed intent on finding out what the host was going to tell them. 

Kirk doesn't answer out loud, but I can see him still looking at me through the corner of my eye. I finally look over to him, and he motions to the kitchen. 

I stand from the couch with a frustrated groan and follow him in there. 

He sets his glass bowl on the counter and leans on it. 

"Did you pay her?" 

"I did."

"Shit...are you okay?" 

I give him a half assed shrug and a passive grin. He's not having it. 

"Do you think you could do me a huge favor and not touch the beer for a while?"

"Why? You savin' it?"

I know exactly why, but it's hard for me to take Kirk seriously when he's dressed like a girl I'd just had my way with. 

Great thing to think about, by the way. 

"I'm not risking you driving drunk again. And I don't wanna watch you drown in the shit after a breakup like that. You're gonna get bad publicity and it's gonna fuck you up in your head and your gut. When was the last time you puked?"

I almost want to lie, but Kirk can see right through me. 

He's made that quite clear. 

"This morning."

"Did you even sleep at all?"

"I slept from when I puked to like, one."

Kirk glances over to the stove behind me to check the embedded clock. It's gotta be about four. 

His gaze goes beyond the clock and he sees the bag of potato chips (that Lars didn't close).

"You need to eat someth-" 

Lars shouting Kirk's name interrupts him. Kirk tells me to wait where I am as he goes back to Lars. When it takes him longer than a minute to come back, I peer past the doorway and see the two of them on the couch. Kirk has no intention of coming back. 

I go back in there too, carrying Kirk's cereal bowl for him. 

I hand it back to him on my way to the recliner, but it's not before catching an apologetic glint in his eye as he says "thanks".

Lars doesn't look at me. 

That's pretty fucking weird. Lars called Kirk back in while he was trying to take care of me. I don't need his care, but it seemed a little fucked for Lars to do that. 

Maybe Kirk should've kept a little quieter. 

The rest of the afternoon is pretty much the same. The three of us in the living space, watching TV, Kirk on the couch a little too close to Lars. And Lars never looks at me. Finally it comes around six, and that's when we're in the kitchen again and Kirk picks up the landline. 

He explains that he's getting food, and that's my ticket to leave. 

Kirk gives me a face. 

"Don't leave, dumbass. We're trying to get you food. You're gonna fuckin' starve to death. "

"I can afford my own food," I explain, with no intention of actually doing so. 

Kirk can tell. I fucking hate this. 

"Stay here so we can get food and I can fuckin' watch you eat. I don't want to watch you waste away to nothing."

"Kirk, he's fine. He said he can get his own food. He's not your fuckin' kid, he can do shit on his own." 

I agree with Lars, but doing it makes me feel guilty. The way Kirk is anxiously playing with his piercing makes me feel guilty. He's worried about me and Lars is encouraging him not to be. 

Well, encouraging might be he wrong word. 

Forcing. 

"Alright..then...call me in a little bit." 

"Kirk, cut it out. James is fine."

James is fine. 

I am fine. 

I have enough money for beer and pizza. I'm fine. 

Kirk looks like he's about to snap at Lars, but he channels it back down and swallows his pride. 

"I'll be alright, don't worry about it." I say, sitting back down to pull on my boots. 

On my way out the door, Lars doesn't answer my prayer of handing me money for the night. 

Then it's decided. I'm not eating. I'm using my cash for a place to stay. 

I walk out the front door, lock it up, and walk to my car. That's when I remember that I forgot about the clothes I was going to take, and start back to the door.

Unfortunately, my body gives me a big 'fuck you' for not nourishing it for the past three days, and my boots suddenly become too heavy for me to lift. 

My knees buckle and I fucking fall. There's a terrible pressure in my head before it hits the concrete. The last thing I hear is the sound of my own voice giving out a grunt, and the door creaking open.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for Slash

I hear bare feet clap against the concrete, and then muffled voices. 

Speak up, goddammit, I can't hear you. 

Why can't I talk?

What the fuck is going on? Where am I?

I slowly blink and roll my eyes but all I can see is blurry figures looming over me. I feel like I should be running away from them but my body is completely frozen, and my head, oh god. 

My head fucking hurts. And it's cold. 

Blood. That's a familiar feeling. 

There's blood matting my hair to my head. My head is fucking bleeding, what the fuck did I do?

Suddenly the muffled gasps are turning into my name. 

"James! What the fuck, man look at me...what the fuck did you...do.."

It's Kirk. Kirk's squirrelly voice trying to get my attention but I can't bring myself to speak to him. 

Then I hear Lars' voice. Fuck me. I wish I didn't. 

"He's as fucking bad as Dave was! Fuckin' look at him, Jesus Christ!"

I thought I was fine, Lars. 

Shit. I did think I was fine. But now I'm laying in the ground immobilized and probably concussed. Because I've been too sad to feed myself. 

I wish the fall would've killed me. 

Kirk's hands land around my cheeks and his legs are on either side of my waist. I struggle to keep my eyes open to look at him, but he's there, and his eyeliner is running down his face. 

Fuck. I made Kirk cry. 

His hands squeeze my face a little tighter, and finally I'm awake again. 

I open and close my hand just to make sure I'm in control of my own actions before I bring my fingers to my head. I touch wherever the blood had come from to see how much there is. 

Quite a lot. I'm probably going to need stitches. Great! How absolutely fucking great!

"I'm alright, I'm alright Kirk." His hands disappear from my face as he rises to his feet again. He's still basically naked besides my shirt, which he's wiping my blood on. Speaking of which, I'm probably gonna get blood on Lars' expensive shirt. Fuck me. He holds out a hand for me and I take it, but I know he's too frail to pull me in my full weight, so I hold onto the wall too. He stumbles back. 

"Fuck, James...what happened..?"

"I just got...dizzy, I guess." 

"You need to fucking eat!" His voice cracks and he looks down in shame. I've really upset him. Bad. 

But what sticks in my head more than that is what I heard Lars say before he fades back inside. 

"He's as bad as Dave."

Holy fuck. 

Holy fuck. 

Lars is completely right. I've been in this situation before. Pulling Dave to his feet after he passed out, hungover and malnourished, in the driveway to my dad's house. Except now I'm in Dave's shoes. 

Dave. 

Fuck. I need to talk to Dave. 

 

I'm in the passengers seat of Kirk's car a few minutes later. He's driving me to the emergency room and Lars is in the backseat. He has me with a wet towel on my head to try and soak up some of the blood. It's not working..there's blood covering my hand and the shirt and half of my face. 

"I'm sorry," I say, laughing. It's not a genuine laugh, but I haven't genuinely laughed in a long time. Kirk smiles at me but the difference is, this is real. 

"It's alright, Het. But I'm gonna get you food whether you like it or not."

I hate it. I absolutely fucking hate being treated like I'm helpless. And from the way Lars has been snapping at Kirk about it, he obviously doesn't like it either. Lars knows that I'm fine and I'm sure I am. I just had a falling out. Literally. 

Someone at the hospital recognizes us and it's absolutely fucking horrible. It's the last thing I needed, a fan to see me covered in blood. With that damn bruise on my face. Kirk's arm around my torso and Lars close behind me. Thankfully we get into a room pretty quick and I get some staples clicked into my skull. I expected it to hurt. But I figure I'm entirely too sad and ashamed to feel pain. 

 

Kirk doesn't let go of me all night. Even Lars begrudgingly agrees to let me stay at the recording space with them. Kirk watches me stuff myself with pizza, too, and I try not to let him see how desperate I am for food. 

Taking small bites and taking time in between them. It takes me an hour and a half to eat half the pizza. And then I feel sick again. But at least it's a sick of overeating rather than starvation. 

"That's a real hot look for you, James."

Lars says, nodding to the six staples above my hairline. 

 

\-------------------------

Kirk almost gets in the car with me when I leave. But I can't have him with me now. I have plenty of business to take care of myself, and the first thing I want to do is call Dave. 

Why? 

I have no fucking idea. 

Probably just because of that thought I had. Dave's been here before. And I want to know how he bounced back. 

I fish through my wallet I find the index card full of Megadeth's contact info. Punching in Dave's number, I realize something, but the thought dissolves when I hear the phone begin to ring. 

After a horribly long ring, I finally hear a click and Dave speaks. 

"'Lo?"

I almost hang up. 

"Hey, Dave. It's James."

There's a terribly long chunk of silence until Dave answers. 

"...what do you need?" Dave's tone is calm, and polite, and fake. I've made him uncomfortable, I can already tell. 

"Hey...I was just..calling to update you on a couple of things." Imagine calling your ex after months of not talking. This is what this feels like. 

"What for?"

I can just about see Dave's face twist in confusion. 

"It's pretty...pretty serious. I've been dumped and I'm going bankrupt, but that's not really why I'm calling...I called you because I uh..."

Why did I call him?

"...I was wondering if we could meet up soon."

Oh fuck. What did I just do...?

"...meet up? Why? You hate me."

"I don't hate you," I say, and I almost believe it. 

"How are you going bankrupt?" Dave knows for a fact that I'm more wealthy than him, so even hearing the word 'bankrupt' come out of my mouth is probably making him salivate. I can hear his lips curl around the word as he says it. 

"I'm..not, I guess. I'm just being dramatic. Fran kicked me out, took some money. And she's still staying in the house."

"Your house."

Our house. 

"Yeah."

"You're such a pushover. You've always been."

I can hear the plastic of the phone in my hand creak. All I say is Dave's name in a cautionary tone, but he continues to push my buttons. 

"Still wanna see meet up, James?"

I fucking hate the way he says my name. But I wish he would say it again. 

"Yeah. I do. I know you're in San Rafael, meet me at the Hole."

"The Hole? Why in the hell-"

"Are you really questioning me?"

"Fuck you James, this is ridiculous."

There's my name again. I bite my lip. He hangs up the phone without another word, but I know he'll be there. Dave never misses out on an opportunity like this. 

 

I get to the Hole with a little bit of recognition, but I'm otherwise left alone. All I've got on me is my wallet, and an ice cold bottle in front of me. I was just starting to get skeptical until I heard the hum of a loud truck. Looking through the window, I see Dave's face in the tinted windshield. 

He's not gonna get out of the car until I leave. We absolutely cannot risk being seen together in public, we both know that. There's no doubt in my mind that Dave can't see me, but he knows I'm in here. We can read each other. Well. It might be why our relationship is, and was, so rocky. 

I toss my change onto the bar, asking for another beer. The second I get it I snag it and take both out the door. 

Dave rolls down the window and he's got the most puzzling look on his face. The only emotion I can pick out is defeat. He's got his hair pulled back in a low pony tail and a red flannel encasing a T-shirt. 

"'Fuck you James', click," I mock his voice and I can pick out another emotion. Frustration. 

Dave mutters, "Get in." And soon I'm in the passengers seat of his car. I hand him the freshest beer and he seems to wince in disgust as his hand comes in contact to mine. I have to say, it gives me a warm, flattered feeling. 

"So are you just going to let her keep your house or are you going to do something about it like a normal human being?" 

"I'm gonna wait and see if she finds a place for her own first." 

Dave takes a long, needy pattern of gulps from the bottle. He hasn't drank in a while, and it's obvious. I wish I could say the same. It's so unhealthy for me to be drinking and I'm breaking the promise with Kirk. I just won't let him find out. 

"Fuck her," he gasps. "She took away your house. She can't do that." 

She can, and she did. I'm gonna get the house back eventually. We bought it together, but, with what I'm sure was out of my back pocket. 

To avoid the awkward silence, Dave has a classic rock station playing quietly from his speakers. 

Stevie Ray Vaughan. 

"She's absolutely useless to you, and you're letting her use you." 

"I haven't spoken to her since she kicked me out." 

Dave finally looks straight at me and his expression shifts, dramatically. 

I almost forgot until he pointed out my-

"Staples? James, what the fuck happened to you? Shit, look'it your jaw," Dave stuffs his beer into the cup holder and turns my head to the side for a better view of my staples and my bruise. My neck locks up and my jaw tightens when I feel his fingers on my face. It's the worst feeling, but I want more of it. 

His eyes are burning my skin. I feel him staring and I hate it. 

"She do that to you?" 

One of them, yes. 

"Yep. Threw my boots at my face."  
Lying by omission is never a good idea when talking to Dave. But I don't want him to know why I have those stitches. 

"Damn, she fucked you up good, Het." 

I shut my eyes and let him study me. 

"Why did she kick you out?"

"I don't know. I was drunk when she was telling me why, and I don't remember anything. But this," I wiggle the neck of the beer bottle in the air, "probably has something to do with it."

"No shit it does."

Kirk would have snatched the bottle away. I miss Kirk. 

"I just...want to know how you bounced back, essentially." While Dave answers, I toy with my choker. Every time he says my name my breathing becomes a little more unsteady, watching his mouth move, and I can feel my body betraying me. 

"I bounced back because I found Junior. Find yourself a Junior, James. You sure as hell can't have mine." That's the thought I had on the phone, before his voice so rudely interrupted it. I knew Junior was his knight in shining armor. But I don't have that angelic bassist that Dave has. 

Staring at the structure of Dave's face, I'm remembering 1983. Very very well. Very vividly. I remember the way my name would roll off Dave's tongue while my nails scraped his back and the way he growled it when I left bite mark craters in his skin. I can't help but think that the same thing happened after we sent him away, but the name was different. Either way...

He has to know why I'm here. He just has to. I need to blow off steam. 

I hardly even listen to what Dave said, my mind is elsewhere. This certainly wouldn't be the first time in the past thirteen years that I've called him up for a quick fuck, but it never happened when I was with Fran. Dave may be a manipulative fucker that always gets what he wants but he knew better than to fuck with my relationship. He had Junior, too. I have no idea what their bond is like, I don't know if they're gay or what, but they sure act like it and Dave does a good job of talking him up. 

I take a long drink from the bottle and suddenly it's left bone dry. 

"How many of those have you had?"

"Today? That was my first one, actually."

He probably doesn't believe it but it's the truth. 

"Shit, James."

That's about all I can take. 

"Alright, let's go." I say, grabbing onto the door handle to get to my own car. 

"Go? Go where?"

And now he's succeeded in pissing me off, too. Turning me on and pissing me off. 

"Don't play fucking stupid."

"James, what the hell are you talking about?" 

He's doing this on purpose now. Saying my name so many times. 

"Go. Now. To the old studio. We've done this a million times." 

The old studio, we used it to record 'Ride the Lightning' but now it was basically a lonely storage unit. 

And where me and Dave went every time a situation like this would arise. 

"Fuck, James," 

And that little sigh gets me hard. 

I grab him by the pony tail and force his head to the side so I have easy access to his ear. I get so close that he buckles under my shaken breathing. 

"If you don't get out of here and park your ass at the studio, I swear to god I'll drag you out like this and bend you over the hood of your own car."

Dave shakes his head, laughing, and turns the engine back on. 

"We both know for a fact that you're too proud to do that."

I reach across him and open his driver's side door. Now anyone from that side can see me and my hostage. 

"Alright, fuck. I'll go to your fuckin' pad." He says, but not until someone does a double take on what they see. Dave slams the door shut and I let go of his pony tail with a smirk. Without another word, I'm out of Dave's truck and on my way to my car. The ride to the house is rough and takes entirely too long. I keep checking Dave in the mirror to make sure he's still with me but his gaze dodges mine every time. 

"Eyes on the road," I tell myself. "eyes on the road."

I get to the house a few minutes before he does, which gives me enough time to put on a record and figure out my plan. 

Unfortunately, I'm standing too close to the door when Dave walks in and he throws me against the wall, closing the door with his boot. He's changed since I last saw him a few minutes before, his hair is loose and wild and his flannel is gone. 

I can barely see his face, but he looks determined. Doesn't look like I'm going to get my way this time. But honestly, as long as I get some sort of attention in my state of mind then I'll be just fine. 

Dave's forearm is barred over my throat, holding me in place against the wall, and his other hand is pulling my belt out of the buckle. Eventually he has to let his arm go to finish the belt but he's pressing all his weight against me to keep me against the wall. I interrupt his hands to pull my belt out of the loops myself, and he gives me an impatient look. I'd have a mind to kick his knees out right now but I don't, instead I grab one of his wrists and twist it behind him and he protests. But I'm stronger than him. 

I take the other wrist as well and wrap the belt around both hands behind his back until he's completely helpless and cursing at me. He yanks his arms to no avail, baring his teeth. 

"Stuck?" I say, and it's every bit as inflammatory as I intended. He stops moving for a second and stares at me. 

"Fuck are trying to do, Hetfield?" 

Referring to me by my last name seems to have the opposite effect Dave wants. Instead of feeling disrespected, I feel like I have more power over him. Finally, I give into the craving and kick the fucker to his knees. He tries to scramble back to his feet, but without the help of his arms, he's not going anywhere. He's reddening in frustration and the belt is cutting into his wrists but I couldn't care less. I unzip my jeans while Dave grumbles obscenities at me, and then I'm pulling Jason's boxers away from my hips. 

Before I expose myself entirely, Dave says something coherent. 

"I have a mind to make you bleed," 

I almost want to say that I trust him not to do that, but instead, I place my steel toed boot in between his thighs and shrug. He looks down and mutters again. 

"Do it. I dare you." I say, and ever so gently press my boot into his dick. He groans. 

"Use teeth and I'll fucking kick you. Don't even try me." 

I pull the boxers down far enough, and pump myself a few times, staring him right in his fucking face with my lip between my teeth. He stares back, occasionally his eyes dart down toward my dick and he tries to look as unhappy as possible. Trying to guilt trip me. Unfortunately for him, I want him to suffer. 

I press the tip of my cock to his lips and surprisingly, he complies, and opens his mouth. This certainly isn't the first time he's sucked my dick, but, it's the first time he's seemed to put up such a fight. I do my absolute best not to make any noise, but Dave notices that. And now he seems to have made that his goal. 

Because he's giving me the best head I've ever gotten. 

I press my palm to the back of his head and twist my fingers into his hair, soon he's got down a rhythm, moving back and forth. He's being smart with his tongue, too, and it's making the base of my spine ache. I'm still standing strong though...I haven't made a noise but my fist is pressed to my mouth just in case. 

Suddenly he slows down, and doesn't bother to swallow all the spit and precum he's gathered in his mouth before letting go of my dick. Saliva webs between his lips and my dick and he's looking at me through a sweat dampened curtain of hair. His lips are wet and his chin is dripping, too. 

Fuck, does he look good. 

He rolls out his tongue, and a string of saliva drops off of it and onto my cock. I pull his hair a little tighter and my chest begins to quiver. 

I force him back onto my dick. If I'm going to make a noise, I'm not gonna let it be because Dave looks like a fucking whore. 

His nose hits my stomach and his throat spasms. He lets out a grotesque choking sound, and that's when I finally let a moan rip through my chest. I yank at his hair and pull him off only to buck against his face and he gags again. 

I only stop fucking his mouth when tears begin to well in the corners of his eyes. 

I let go of his hair and he pulls off, panting. 

"I'm going to fucking bite you..." he whimpers, wiping spit off on the shoulder of his T-shirt. My knees are shaking and all I want to do is grab hold of his face again but I'm risking my dick if I do it, so, I'll let him go at his own pace--

He presses his tongue to the tip and it disappears behind his lips, and his cheeks hollow, and..

I groan, loud, and press my palm into my eyes. 

My knees are getting weak so I lean my upper back against the wall and spread my legs farther to stay upright. 

Dave giggles and the vibration shoots a chill up my back. 

The moans spilling out of me feel pathetic and weak, but it has been so fucking long since my dick has gotten any attention from anyone but myself. It seems to motivate Dave more, he's taking more into his throat without help from me, oh fuck it feels good. He should be the bitch here, tied up, on his knees with half my cock in his mouth but somehow I still feel like the pushover. But the strangest part is, it almost feels like Dave wants to make me feel better. 

I can only fucking imagine what he'd let me do to him if that's the case. I shudder at the thought and my heartbeat starts to pound faster and faster. I have one hand covering my eye, and the other is gripping Dave's head. I can't help but turn my head to the side in shame when my eyes roll back and my jaw clenches shut, all because the pressure in my gut is burning through me. That's when he forces himself too far again and I grunt and arch and feel myself so close to cumming, but it's too soon. I try to push his head away so I can savor it a little longer, but he's not having it. He rips one of his hands out of belt, not without giving himself a gigantic scratch, and smacks my hand away. I try again, and suffer the same fate, except the time he pins my wrist flat against the wall and keeps going until my orgasm rolls through me. 

My knees liquefy and my throat strangles out a dragged along, "Fuuuuuck.."

Dave makes sure to clean up the best he can before pulling off. He swallowed everything, nothing even spills over the sides of his mouth, but he drags the back of his free hand over it anyway. He finally uses it to stand up again, and he examines the scratch. The belt gave him a welt, tiny spheres of blood lined up along it. 

I'm still panting, leaning against the wall as I shove my dick back into my boxers, my jeans still around my thighs and undone. I can't see, everything is a bright white blur and my face is fuckin' warm. I don't even know where Dave's gone until his fingers dig under my choker and he yanks me forward. I nearly stumble over my own boots as my nose smashes against Dave's cheek, and we're connected at the lip. He doesn't seem done. 

Usually, the kiss is where I start to feel guilt. But I've desensitized myself to that guilt after so many years of this. 

He's pulling me along by my choker, like I'm a pet with a collar and he's coaxing me. He pulls me until he backs up against the kitchen counter, and then I push his shoulders to crunch his back against the corner. He grunts, and his giant fucking paw curls around my throat. My body betrays me and my head tilts up, allowing another hand to wrap around my throat. I don't even realize what I've done until both of Dave's thumbs are pushed up against my Adam's apple, and I can barely breathe. I gasp and scratch at his hands, but he's taking advantage of me, and before I know it my back hits the corner of the counter and Dave is pressing his weight against me again. The corner digs into my back; wincing, I try to escape Dave's grip. Finally I bring my knee up to his crotch, not hard enough to knock the wind out of him, but hard enough to make his hands drop and elicit a gratified groan. By now I'm laying on top of the counter, panting, rubbing my neck where, no doubt, there's two handprints. Dave unzips his jeans and crawls on top of the counter with me, and that's where I start to question it. 

"What in the fuck do you think you're doing, Mustaine?" I get up to lean on my elbows and look up at Dave. 

"Getting my money's worth," he says, and there's this grin I want to slap off his face. 

"I didn't call you out here for you to make me your bitch."

"Then your message was very unclear, Het."

Dave's hand lands around my throat again and he forces my head against the counter. I can feel a migraine spreading through my skull the second my head hits the cheap countertop, but I can hardly focus on the pain. Dave settles his weight on my hips and pushes my jaw up to gain access to my neck. It feels fucking amazing to have his mouth on my skin again, but I know I'm not getting out of here without being marked up. That'll be fun to explain. 

He lets go of the stretch of skin with a loud pop and I can hear him giggle. He's left a big purple mark, that giggle tells me. 

"Did you..fucking mark me?" I wheeze, in between breathless gasps. I can't stay too mad at him, all his weight settling on my dick is hardening it right back up. I have plenty of time to be mad at him later, when I have to explain my new hickey. 

Oh well. Since there's one, might as well mark me the fuck up, right? 

"Tell Lars," He sucks on another section of my neck, right to the side of my Adam's apple. "...Dave says hi." 

I want nothing more than to choke Dave and watch his cheeks turn blue after hearing him say that, but my anger quickly boils down into a gentle, little bitch moan, because he bites and tugs at the skin on my Adam's apple. Then he giggles, and lets his palm press into my already half hard cock. 

"Yeah? What was that?"

I grit my teeth. He's seriously starting to push his luck. Although I'm completely at Mustaine's mercy, I know I'm not going to get any of the sort unless I take it. And when I want something, I take it. 

Right now I want Dave to submit. 

My fingers bend in Dave's hair and my forearm flexes as I rip his head away from me. He whines, and his face is twisted in pain as he tries to pry me away. But I've got him. I've got him now. My boot presses into his crotch again to push the rest of his body up and off of the counter. That's when his winces of pain get louder. Fuck they sound good. 

"James--...fuck...it hurts.."

I stand up off the counter and make my way behind Dave, who's still disoriented. He doesn't even know where I am until I press his face into the countertop and kick his feet apart. Then he starts to bark his share of vulgarities. 

"Fuck you Hetfield! You don't have the fucking balls!"

Funny, considering I've been balls deep in him before. 

"No? Why do you say that?" I grouse, digging my fingers under his waistband with one hand, holding his head to the countertop with the other. His fists open and close, grabbing at thin air, trying to find me, probably. He tells me to go fuck myself when I pull his jeans off his ass and leave them around his thighs. He's going commando, which explains why he liked (or hated) it so much when I put my boot to his dick. 

I laugh at the sight of his bare ass. The fact that he didn't wear boxers, on purpose, is hilarious to me. He is the bitch. He did want this. 

What a fucking whore. 

He cranes his neck around to look at me and what the hell I'm doing, thankfully he catches an eyeful of me spitting into my hand and stroking my dick. I know the look I'm giving him is working. I've given every girl I've fucked this look, I've given Lars this look, I've given Dave this look too. 

His eyes roll back and he turns his face, and drops his forehead to the counter. His arms are framed around his head and no, that's not going to do for long. 

There's not much more I can do for him then the spit slicking up my dick. I probably shouldn't have let him fight with me for so long, maybe all that fucking spit he worked up that's soaking Jason's boxers right now would've given him a little mercy..

But no. Dave, you can't dig your nails into a kitchen counter but oh fuck is he trying. I've only gotten the tip in and he's already trying to get away. 

"Maybe if you didn't fight with me it wouldn't hurt so bad would it? Maybe I wouldn't have had to go in...dry."

I grunt the last word as my hip bones hit his ass. He has a hand on his forehead, holding his hair out of his face and his back is quivering with his breath. I don't think I've ever had to fuck him to let off anger before. 

I've never been this rough with him. I've never made him gag and choke, I've never made him fight with me and I've certainly never threatened to fold him over in pain by kicking him. 

This might be the first time I've ever made him scream. And oh does he scream. I can't hear the record for a second hearing his rough, gravelly voice bounce off of the counter. 

I suppose I'm nice enough to let him adjust, so I take off Lars' shirt, and roll it into a flat bar to wrap it around Dave's eyes. He hates it, he hates not knowing what's going on, especially since it's hard enough for him to see what I'm doing behind him anyway. 

The second I tie it around his head, I focus back on the task at hand. 

"The fuck is this all about?" He whines. His voice is fucking weak. 

He feels me pull out about halfway, and he's (absentmindedly, I think), pushing his hips back. But he doesn't have to; I grab him and slam back in and he groans my name. 

My first name. 

I grab his wrist and twist it around his back again, except now I'm holding it for leverage. The belt is still on the floor by the door, dammit. I could really use it right now. There's blood on my palm from Dave's wrist, but it's just adding to the evidence. 

Dave has been here. By here, I mean me. My body. And now I'm gonna have to live knowing that. 

My blood starts to boil and I fuck him harder. The awful sound of skin hitting skin and Dave's extremely vocal response. 

He's covered my neck in fucking hickeys. Adding to my staples and my bruise. He's probably left a burn from dragging me by my choker too. 

I hold Dave's wrist harder and his hand starts to twitch with insensitivity. 

"Fuck you..fuck you!"

Somehow I think Dave knows I'm not talking to him; he only responds with involuntary moans and growls. The fact that I've even ended up back in this position is causing my skin to sink to my tendons and every inch of my body is strained in anger. 

I take his hair in my hand again and yank his head up. His moans sound strangulated now, and he can barely breathe. Perfect. Maybe I'll snap him in half. 

I can't stop staring at the pulsing vein in my bicep, pumping in the same quickened rate as the vein in Dave's neck. 

Through clenched teeth, I bark again. 

"You fucking..whore..ruined my fucking life!" 

In response, I get a 'fuck' that bounces off the walls of the kitchen. 

"Take my shit again! I fuckin' dare you!"

The thrust I give as a part of 'dare' causes Dave's hips to crash into the side of the counter and he bites his lip. I would let go of him to help him breathe, but he'd probably be of more use to me if he wasn't even conscious. 

I lean closer and yank him back even further to make him hear me. 

"Mark me up some more so I have something to hate you for." 

Dave lets out a noise, like relief, when I let his head drop. 

I kick his legs back together and let out a noise of my own now. It felt absolutely fucking amazing when he tightened around me and I'm gonna let him know. I can tell he feels the same way, he's a bitch for pain. 

I can't help it anymore. I'm hurting him, I'm fucking him harder than he can really handle and the counter isn't holding up so well under all that force. The drawers keep rattling in this terrible way. 

All Dave can do is repeat 'Fuck' and 'James' over and over, trying to bury his face in the same, sweaty spot on the counter, hiding beneath his forearms and his hair. I've got both of his hips in my hands. 

I hear him say something, but it's poorly translated through a breathy moan. 

And then I stop, abruptly, and pull out. 

"Fuck-don't...please don't.."

"Sorry, what?" I say, chuckling. "Did you just beg for more?" 

Dave doesn't answer. But he's grateful for having Lars' shirt hiding ninety-percent of his face. 

"Fuckin' look at this. Dave Mustaine, high-n-mighty Dave Mustaine bent over Metallica's kitchen counter begging for me to fuck him."

"Fuck you!"

"I know you want to, muffin. Come get it if you want it so bad."

Dave growls. He was probably close to cumming. 

"I already came," I point out, taking a step away. "so maybe if you wanna cum so bad you can make yourself cum."

He's going to kick the shit out of me. 

"Or you can beg some more. Like a little bitch."

He turns around, pulling his jeans up temporarily and lifts his ankles up, one at a time, to unzip and kick away his boots. He reaches behind his head and unties the shirt, tossing it to wherever the belt is. Then he grabs me by my choker again, and pulls my neck back to his mouth. I guess he's listening to me. But now I have to face him while we finish what we started. 

He crawls back onto the counter, like we've been playing this game of back and forth, but finally something comes of it. 

He kicks off his jeans, I go back to fucking him, and he attaches himself to my neck. His nails are attacking my back, and I fucking know this doesn't feel good enough to 'accidentally' make me bleed. The stinging scratches cause me to arch against him and grit my teeth, but I'm not about to stop for some insignificant fucking scratches on my back. This is an extremely intimate position, I think, I'm between his legs and he's upright, holding onto me with his arm hooked under mine, the other around my neck. I kind of fucking hate it. This is something we would've done ten years ago, before the contempt. And I would be the one on the counter. I try not to think about it when he sucks on my neck to mark me up like I told him, but..

Maybe contempt isn't what I need. Maybe I shouldn't have even called Dave up. I don't need hickeys, I don't need a trip down Bad Memory Lane and I don't need a hatefuck. 

That thought is knocked straight out of my brain when Dave can't focus on turning my neck black and blue anymore, and he leans back, limp, like a rag doll. He's only saved from hitting the counter by my arm, which I use to hold onto as I ride this out as long as I can. 

I lower him onto his back, and his hair falls around him, sticking to his face. He's not even making noise anymore, just breathing, heavy. He takes his own dick in his hand to finally fucking end this. Sure, it feels fine. Feels fucking great. But emotionally draining. 

I place a palm on his knee and I bite down on my other fist. We both cum at pretty much the same time, both onto Dave's stomach, which his shirt was thankfully riding high on. He doesn't say my name, and I have to say I'm a bit disappointed. The only thing I say as my eyes shut tight and my teeth clamp down on my knuckles is 'fuck'. 

Contempt. I fucking despise Dave Mustaine. 

At least that's what I'm thinking as I hand him a paper towel to clean the spunk dripping off his tapered waist. 

I stuff my dick back in my pants and walk to the door, to replace my shirt and my belt. My back is covered in fucking scratches, some bloody, and my neck is raw. Putting my belt on is a fucking chore. 

I open one of the drawers to find a dusty, still-packaged box of cigarettes and an abundance of lighters. There's also clips from a porno magazine and a ton of loose thumb tacks. This is definitely our pad. Smoking dust is probably going to give me some sort of gnarly cough, but I'm willing to take that risk for some nicotine right now. It takes me a couple tries but finally the lighter does its job and burns the tip of an old cigarette. I place it between my lips and lean against the wall, sliding down until I'm sitting with parted knees and my elbows on top. 

Dave dresses himself back up and ties up his messy hair in a pony tail with the little elastic around his wrist. I try not to notice Dave walking toward me until he does something I didn't expect. 

He kicks me, hard, in the ribs. The cigarette flies from my lips as I fold over and hold my midsection, coughing. 

"I fucking hate you. Don't ever call me again."

"I made you cum and this is the thanks I get?" I say, laughing. But the laugh only makes me cough some more. 

He always tells me not to call him, but he always picks up when I do. I wonder why. 

He leaves the space without another word and slams the door shut. 

All I do is pick the damaged cigarette up off the floor and smoke it to the butt while laying on my side. Finally getting what I fucking deserve.


	3. Chapter 3

After Dave left, I lied on the ground until the sun went down. The record playing had long since gone silent, waiting for me to flip it over. But it never happens. My ribs aren't broken, no, but there's definitely a bruise there too. I've gotten my ass fucking handed to me the past couple of days, but...I deserve it. I really do. It doesn't matter anymore how much pain I'm in, because everything that's happening to me I've done to someone else.

_Have you actually done these things to people?_

Yes I have.

_Have you ever given someone else staples? Or bruised their face and kicked their ribs?_

Probably. When I was drunk.

_But you don't remember anything from when you were drunk. How do you even know? How would you know? Why are you letting yourself take this if you don't even remember if you deserve it?_

I don't know. I'm too sad to fix it.

_You need help_.

I don't need shit. I'll help myself.

_You're not going to fucking do that and you know it. You'll let yourself get killed._

Oh well.

 

It's late by the time I leave the derelict unit and get in the car to drive back to my apartment. I have to stop by the store to pick up painkillers, soap and beer.

Do I even have any money on me? I don't. Fuck. I'll have to go back to the apartment first and find my wallet, then risk being seen in public in my condition.

My eyes roll up to the rear view mirror and I look like I've been through fucking hell. Either side of my neck is covered in grotesque patches of purple and grey, and my Adam's apple is red. That's no doubt gonna be an ugly yellow color by tomorrow. It'll match the streak of yellow on my jaw. My staples aren't quite as obvious, they're mostly hidden by curls. But I look fucking awful.

I get to the apartment building with a few stares. The fucking hickeys. I want to wash every trace of Dave off of me but There's no soap in the shower. They don't provide that shit like they do in hotels. Rubbing my hands over my face, I search the floor for my wallet. They're in another pair of jeans. I take the wallet and stuff it into my back pocket, and then take the sweatshirt I took from the studio from the pile of clothes and pull it over my head. The hood mostly covers my neck. I have no idea whose sweatshirt this is, but it smells familiar.

 

When I finally check back in for the night, I've blown over thirty dollars on snacks, beer and soap. I know I shouldn't have bought beer. I promised Kirk. But I already broke that promise once today, there's no sense in pretending I'm still holding true to it.

The shower feels amazing. Like I'm washing Dave down the drain. I stay in there for nearly an hour trying to make sure no inch of me goes unscrubbed. I spend extra attention on my face, trying to scrub away any traces of kissing Dave out of my beard and off of my lips. I'll wash it out of my mouth with beer later.

\-------

I passed out on the couch, watching TV after I got out of the shower. There was two empty bottles on the coffee table and a bag of chips that was probably stale now. I woke up pretty early, probably because I fell asleep at like seven thirty.  It's eight-fifteen a.m. now. I actually have time to relax before meeting up with Jason. He's probably not gonna be back until late, but I want to meet with him in person before we go back to the studio. I don't wanna run the risk of trying to explain my situation around Lars. I know he's already got his personal biases, and he's probably influenced Kirk to think the same thing. I just wanna see if I can allow Jason to formulate his own opinion. Maybe Jason will side with Fran and tell me I'm a piece of shit. Maybe he'll tell me to go to rehab because he doesn't want to see my fucking face anymore. Maybe he'll tell me what I want to hear so I have a more legitimate reason to hate myself.

God, I miss Jason. But he really doesn't need to know that.

I spend almost the entire day on the couch. Other than to piss a couple times and make a sandwich. Around noon, the phone rings. It's a little strange, I didn't think anyone knew the number for this apartment, but upon answering, I hear Lars.

Ugh.

"Hello?" I don't get a proper greeting.

"Jason just called from LAX, he's probably gonna be over here at the studio when he gets back-"

"Wait, hold on."

"What?"

"Tell him to meet me somewhere first."

"What? You wanna see him before us or what?" Lars says, snickering. "Little eager aren't you?"

"Shut the fuck up Lars, I want to tell him what happened."

"Then why don't you just come down here?"

"I don't want you to explain it. I want to tell him myself. Call him back and tell him to meet me at Billy's or I'm gonna wring your little neck." And then I hang up.

Billy's is a little less bar than it is grill, so I might not be as tempted with alcohol if I'm surrounded by food instead.

Lars better fucking tell him or so help me God.

I don't bother cleaning up the mess I left on the coffee table when I get dressed. At least, if Jason doesn't show up, I'll bring some cash for dinner.

Hopefully Lars will call be in confirmation before I leave. I don't wanna be waiting at Billy's forever. Especially if Jason doesn't show up. Finally it's almost one thirty and I'm starting to get antsy. So I call Lars up myself.

Thankfully, Kirk picks up this time. "Kirk? Hey. Did you call Jason?"

"Lars did, yeah-" I hear Kirk cover the microphone as Lars says something in the background.

"...Anyway, yeah, he should be on his way soon. He wanted to drop off some luggage here before he went over."

Shit. I don't like the sound of that. "Alright. Thanks man." It's a genuine thank you, I hope Kirk gets that.

"Course. Are you two gonna come to the studio later?" And Kirk sounds cute. Like little kid cute. Asking if his dad's gonna come home for dinner. I want it to stop. "I'll...see what I can do. Talk to you in a bit."

I hang up before this gets too painful.

I have to pull that same fucking sweatshirt over my shirt just to make sure Jason doesn't notice my hickeys. That would be fucking hard to explain, "Hey, my girlfriend left me, look at all these hickeys I got two days later! Don't ask who they came from, that'll be media fucking hell!" Ugh.

 

I drive to Billy's with white knuckles. It's too fucking hot for this sweatshirt, even with the sleeves rolled up to my elbows. My car is too hot for the sweatshirt. My body is overheating too.

Fuck me. I'm miserable.

I don't know what car Jason's driving, so I can't search the parking lot for his presence. I'm just gonna have to look inside. Me and Jason come here a lot, but we don't really have a regular spot. Hopefully I don't look like an asshole trying to find him.

The restaurant's host welcomes me back by name. I want to think that it's refreshing, but it's not. It just reminds me that I'm a creature of habit and my entire life has been thrown out of loop.

He tries to show me to my own table, but I ask him if he's seen Jason. Then he points over to a table under some dim lights in a corner where, sure enough, Jason's sitting there with a beer in his hand and an unopened beer across from him. For me. So much for not drinking. It is refreshing, however, to see Jason again. It's only been a couple of weeks but it's entirely too fucking long.

When I get to the table, Jason's eyes dart up to me and he stands from the table, and throws his arms around me.

That's... Weird.

"Shit man, I'm so sorry." He says, against my shoulder. I kind of hug back, just an arm around his shoulders.

Why would he be...

No. Lars already fucking told him.

"Sorry? Why?" I say, as clueless as possible. He just says Francesca's name and sits back down, which is my cue to do the same. Guess it's time to fucking skin that little Danish prick.

I sit across from Jason and crack open the bottle. The sound makes my teeth hurt. "What did Lars tell you?" I ask, cautiously. Jason doesn't seem to be as disgusted as I am. "He told me Fran kicked you out, and that you're living in an apartment now."

"Well that much IS true. What else did he tell you?"

"Yeah, he..." Jason smiles and scratches the back of his neck. Now he's disgusted. "He told me about those." He nods up to my staples. I forgot about them again, thanks Jason. "He said you passed out drunk in the driveway."

"Okay, no." I straightened in my seat to try and make it look like I was a little less pissed. "I didn't eat for a couple days and it made me pass out. I wasn't drunk." Jason looks at the bottle in my hand. "Okay. Fine. I was a little drunk. But I didn't pass out drunk."

"Your cheek's all fucked up too."

"Fran threw my boots at me. Hit me in the fuckin' face." A waiter interrupts us, and asks if we want the usual. Apparently, we have a usual. I tell him sure, and it's plastic and polite. Jason is snickering at me. "Excuse me?" I say. He's looking down at the table and smiling against his bottle. I can't help but smile too. "What?"

"You're wearing my jacket,"

I am wearing his jacket. Fuck.

He's giggling, so I'm giggling too. I missed that stupid wrinkled smile of his. He's got like seventeen dimples on each cheek and it's the greatest thing I've seen all week. "Took your clothes or what?" "All my shit's still at the house. The only things she doesn't have are my guitars and my truck."

"You don't have any clothes at the studio?"

"No, Lars always kicks me out. I don't know what's up with him and Kirk but he shoves me away any chance he gets. Kirk's always trying to get me to stay though." All Jason does is say, "Gay", and take a drink of his beer. I stifle a laugh against the glass myself.

The waiter brings by two plates with burgers on them, identical, but the one he hands to Jason doesn't have onions. I guess we do have a usual, because I can clearly picture him saying, "I'll have the same, no onions please." Feels good having Jason around again. "Usual," Jason says, taking a huge bite. "What?"

"Nothin'."

"No, tell me. What's funny?"

With a hand to cover his mouth, he actually responds, rather than give me another elementary school giggle. I'm not complaining though. I'd rather Jason act like my playground buddy than talk about my debt. "We have a usual. You don't think that's funny? They know us by name and remember what we order. We're always in here."

"They probably think we're butt buddies." Jason laughs.

"Probably."

 

After we leave, I follow Jason back to the studio. I'm a little buzzed, but nothing that's going to keep me away from my truck. I need to be a little buzzed to make sure I don't level Lars. Hopefully Kirk and Jason will be my higher power. But Lars did the exact opposite of what I told him to do. I don't like to give empty threats, but I honestly didn't think Lars would go against my wishes like that. I just won't say anything to keep my anger at bay, if at all possible.

Seeing Lars upon entering makes my gut wrench a little. He looks entirely too happy, and he looks like he's going somewhere. He's all dressed up, button up shirt and all, and he's wearing his eyeliner. I don't see him at first, but Kirk is dressed up too. "Where are you guys going?" Jason asks, before I can. "Out, there a problem?"

"Out where?" I butt in.

"We're goin' drinking, James. Calm down..." he pats my shoulder, and gives me this...look. This smile. It makes my jaw clench shut and my throat tighten. It's...scary. Honestly. He has malicious intentions with that fucking smile.

"We we're gonna invite you, but Jason's got Jetlag and Kirk's babying you away from drinking."

I wish that were true. I really do.

Kirk avoids my eyes when he walks out with Lars. Me and Jason are left in the dust. It's not what I expected, kind of not what I wanted, but maybe this time Lars won't kick me out, and I can stay away from that godawful apartment for a little while longer.

"...you drank at Billy's," Jason says, leaning on the counter.

I don't want to talk about this at all. Especially not with Jason.

"Kirk isn't my mom, dude."

"He's smart, though."

"Smart, yeah. But I'm not gonna let him treat me like a dog."

Thankfully, Jason lets it go. "Understandable." Is all he says, and we can move on.

 

While Lars and Kirk are gone, me and Jason spend our time in the recording booth. He said something like, 'Haven't touched a bass in a while,' and I catch this huge smile on his face when he wraps his hand around the neck of his ESP. There's a notepad on the table with the songs from Reload, and almost all of them are checked off, excluding Unforgiven II, Fixxxer, Carpe Diem Baby, and...well, the song that Jason helped us write, 'Where The Wild Things Are'. We sit across from one another with guitars on our laps, his ESP and my Gibson. And he shows me his ideas for what the riffs should sound like. He shows me variations of a rolling bass riff, and then shows me how to play the guitar riff he thought of. Usually, anyone telling me how to play my guitar would drive me up the fucking wall. But Jason is...extremely patient. He's patient and he isn't forcing me to play it the way he sees fit like Lars does. Kirk usually just eats up what I feed him. This is a nice change. Maybe I should've started listening to Jason earlie-

"You hear me?"

"What? Oh, no. Sorry. What'd you say?" He places a finger on my fretboard and my entire body tenses up. He better tread very fucking lightly, touching my guitar. "This fret," he slides his finger down the neck. "to this fret. And through those you keep the same shape when you move your hand."

"And play all three strings?"

"One after another, yeah." What Jason tells me to do sounds fucking great and it fits with the way he wants the song to sound. A faint little buzzing fills the room while Jason plugs in his bass and plays along with me. He plays on the off beat for a while until he decides it would sound better in unity with my guitar. And it does. Jason is really good at this composition stuff.

\----------

"'Will this earth be good to you?' And then the back vocals would be like, just a step lower," Jason moves his hand up and down on an imaginary tone scale while reading the lyrics to me. We can't record them now, but if we figure out how they should sound before we start writing the instrumental, melodies will be easier to write. Everything is going shockingly well, until I start reading them myself. And I get a bit flustered. Not out of frustration, but even...shame, maybe? I'm overheating in the sweatshirt. It might not sound like much of a big deal, but I completely spaced the purple mural on my neck when I pull it over my head. And it's too late to change my mind.

"Ohoho, shit, Het!" Jason covers his mouth and squints at me.

Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck. That's glorious. That's peachy fucking keen.

"Ah shit."

"Who the fuck did that to you? Goddamn! Was that Fran?"

I have no fucking clue what to say. Please keep showing me the lyrics to the song, Newkid. Or I'll snap your fucking bass in two.

I rub my hand over my face. "I haven't fucked a girl other than Fran in two years," I say. I suppose that's my final answer. I didn't exactly answer his question, but it's true. I haven't had sex with any woman other than Francesca. But I didn't get those hickeys from her, now did I?

"James! You can't do that shit!" He says, laughing. "If I'm gonna be alone the least she can do is give me a farewell gift." She gave me bruises, but not these bruises.

God I fucking hate Dave Mustaine.  

"She gave you enough, and she took enough, don't you think? You're all black'n'blue. Those staples don't exactly help."

"She took my cash, my house, my blood, my clothes. I'm bone dry man. Why do you think I've been wearing your shit?"

"Maybe because you missed my smell."

Uh, excuse me? Is there a fucking problem, Newsted? Is now the time for that sort of homoerotic joke? No it fucking is not. Either way, I pick up the sweatshirt and press it to my face, taking a huge, audible whiff. And I make sure Jason can see my eyes roll back in my head when I do that. It makes him laugh, which makes me feel a little less terrible.

 

Usually, when me and Jason are alone together, we drink. So not drinking is...pretty awkward. We're not doing much, but sitting in the darkened room with the low ceiling and the patriotic flags, running through riffs and screaming lyrics at one another. For a while he leaves, probably to go take a piss, and I occupy my time alone fixing my chokers to hide as much of my neck as possible. I'm not putting that sweatshirt back on, not right now at least, it's too goddamn humid down in the booth. I'll put it on before Kirk and Lars get back, and hopefully, Newkid has enough respect for me to keep his giant mouth shut.

When he comes back, he has two bottles in his hands. My heart sinks, a little, but my brain? All for it. Good for Jason, kissing my ass. I'll let him. I have plenty of time later to question the motive and morality of this, for now I have a tan glass beauty to wrap my lips around. I've developed quite the taste for that bud in the past couple days, but I haven't gotten piss drunk in a while. Tonight might be the night, goddamn I hope it is, but I can't get drunk here. We can't get drunk here. I'd gladly take Jason back to my apartment so we could get blackout drunk while watching cowboy movies from the seventies, just like we did way back when. Before Kirk and Jason's dumb asses ever thought of having a temporary wedding band around their fingers, and before I was dealing with failed monogamy and addiction to chaos. Jason wouldn't do that, not tonight at least. He just got back from god knows where. He has a home to get back to, a bed he hasn't slept in in a week or so.

What I wouldn't give to get back in my own bed the way it belongs.

All these thoughts tore my cerebrum apart with that first, deliciously cold sip.

"You alright man?" Jason asks as he tosses the bottle cap toward the garbage can, and misses.

"Pissed off."

"Pissed? Why?"

"Because Kirk is guiding me away from bud while going out to get smashed with Lars. Who you think's driving them? Bob?"

"They didn't tell me who they were going with but it's not Bob. Bob's supposed to come back next week with the crew. Maybe Kirk'll stand by his own word and be Lars' designated driver."

I hope that's the case. But that's not what I really heard out of that sentence, all I heard was that we have one last week to ourselves before we actually have to start working again. I'm not sure I'll produce anything good, I'll probably just start another cycle of hungover, drunk, hungover, drunk, and hope for the absolute best.

Me and Jason are preoccupied, yeah. Talking and trying to figure out something by scribbling on those little spiral notebooks that litter the whole house, but something doesn't feel...right. He keeps looking at my neck, every time I talk to him, that's where his eyes dart. Honestly can't blame him, but it's starting to really piss me off. So despite the heat, I scramble back into the sweatshirt.

"Well shit, you okay?" Jason asks, taking a drink from his bottle. I just kinda nod, and run my hands down my face.

"...I have an idea." Jason sits up from the chair with his face contorted in thought. He tells me to stay put, and comes back a minute later with a lanyard, with keys clipped to the end.

"Oh?"

"Let's go get your shit. I'll take you."

Jason? Offering to drive me to my house? I feel like that's happened before but I'd been too drunk to register it. I didn't say much, Jason's had two beers, but so have I. So we just get rid of the evidence and get in his truck. I have plenty of trust in Jason, it takes quite a bit of sauce to get him drunk, and he's driving just fine, abiding by the law at least. I'm not worried about him, but my gut is twisting itself anyway. I'm worried that I'll run into Francesca. Fucking praying she's not there when we get there.

Jason tells me about his trip on the ride over, seeing the strain that must've been written into my face. I still don't pay enough attention to know where the fuck he was, because I'm a bad friend, but that's obviously not why he's telling me. He brings it up so abruptly and I know him well enough to expect this from him. He knows he's not required to spill his guts to us like I am. Me and Kirk are pretty private people, but Lars gets tweaky when we keep secrets. He just doesn't pry at Jason the same way he pries at us. I just nod and smile, like Francesca did to me when I spoke. Except Jason doesn't look at all hurt. Bless Jason and his fucking patience with me.

Getting into the neighborhood, I don't see Francesca's car in the parking lot. A good sign, definitely. But that doesn't mean she can't still be here. Jason parks about a house down, in the street, and when he gets out of the car he checks the backseat and the bed, to make room, I'm guessing. He actually has intentions of helping me. Maybe I've been around Dave and Lars for too long but I didn't expect anything to come of this. Lars would've brought me here to scream at me and Dave would've brought me here to fuck me and pretend he never wants to see me again, like every time.

Jason even walks in front of me and asks for my keys, so I don't have to walk in first, just in case she's here. I can't help but grin.

He opens the door and examines the entrance. The lights are off and the fans in the living room are off too. She's gone. I kind of push past Jason to explore the rest of the house, just to make sure the little thump of my over excited heart is there for a reason. I tear open a couple of drawers in the bedroom, and find... Nothing. Absolutely nothing. No photo albums, no jewelry, no panties, nothing.

Jason follows me into the room after hearing me yell "Fuck yeah," at the top of my lungs. The house is mine again! All mine! I can move my shit out of that disgusting apartment and sleep in my own bed, puke in my own toilet and then pass out in my own bathtub!

Jason sees the excitement in my eyes and smiles a giant smile. "Looks like I don't need to load up my truck." "Well at least a little, I need to take some shit back to the studio for whenever Bob gets there but...but yeah. The house is mine," Jason opens the closet door, wide enough for me to see, and I see an absolutely gorgeous sight. No dresses, no skirts, no heels. All that's in there are my jeans, still hung up and wrinkle free. Every pair of boots I've ever owned and my twenty year old Vans. Not only did she clear out any trace that she ever lived here, she seemed to have organized my shit too. Jason turns and looks at me in awe. "She never did this shit when you were with her, did she?"

"Never."

"Damn. Break up sex and a clean house." He sounds absolutely astonished by my life.

He never liked Francesca, that was obvious, but he seems so happy that she's gone. Happier than me.

'Break up sex'. I've still got him believing a lie, poor bastard.

After he got done staring slack-jawed at my closet he turns back around and said, "Okay, find some stuff, I'm gonna go check out the rest of the house."

"Have you ever been in my house?" I yell as he skids out of the room. He yells back, "Nope!" And his voice gets distant.

I furrow my brows as I skim through the closet. How the hell could he have avoided coming in here? I've had this house for two years! "Yeah you have," I yell, hoping it would reach him, wherever he was. "We had that Thanksgiving here-"

I stop myself.

Thank god Jason was out of the house when I said that. Fran didn't invite Jason for that Thanksgiving. No wonder he hates her. God, I'm starting to hate her too. But bless her little heart for cleaning the house up for me. She better not come back.

"What? I was outside."

"Nothing." I hand him a pile of folded jeans and place my pair of mud covered D-Toe boots on top. He gives me a bit of a dirty look, but he smiles underneath his scowl and takes them. "I'm not your maid, Het." He grumbles. I ruffle my fingers through his short, messy hair and grin. "Whatever you say, Newkid."

\-----------

Me and Jason took a couple of the cassettes from my glass case into his truck for the ride back to the studio. I noticed Francesca took her Stryper cassette, thank god.

Jason's attention had been drawn to a little Flotsam And Jetsam demo tape that hid behind some of our old singles. "Holy shit," he'd said. "You have our old demos."

"Well no kiddin-"

"I mean, Flotsam, you have the demos."

"Oh, yeah, I do. I found them after you auditioned." Jason didn't answer, he just smiled at the little piece of old plastic in his hands. It had his nickname scribbled over it in my handwriting. "NEWKID". He read it, in a whisper, and put it back in the case.

\-----------------

He took my Jane's Addiction cassette (actually, it might have been Fran's), and a Bob Seger single of 'Turn The Page'. He popped that in the deck for the ride back. God, could he have picked any other song? I was feeling pretty good until I heard the echoing whine of the guitar. He pats the steering wheel in time with the slow beats and mouths the words. I have no doubt in my mind he'd be singing if I weren't there. If he sings I'll join him. If he doesn't, I'll stare out the window and pretend this song doesn't get to me.

He's not going to sing, is he?

"On a long and lonesome highway, east of Omaha..."

Bob Seger's hurt voice kicks me in the same spot Dave did and I squirm under the seatbelt.

"You can listen to the engine moanin' out his one note song..."

There have been plenty of times where I've listened to this song while driving at two in the morning, after getting in a fight with Fran and needing to clear my head. It reminds me of the time I had to wait in my truck behind a bar until the cops in the area left, so I could go home. I sat and sang it for half an hour.

"You can think about the woman, or the girl you left the night before..."

Is Dave my girl or my woman? Because he's in my head right now.

"But your thoughts will soon be wanderin', the way they always do..."

I'm finally going home tonight. Maybe I'll have the strength to leave the beer in the fridge at the apartment to be forgotten and finally gave myself a break. I look over to Jason again. It's dark already, or getting there. All I can see of him is what the sunset decides to show me. I watch his mouth move around the words.

"Here I am, on the road again, there I am, up on the stage, here I go, playing star again, here I go, turn the page."

He has his hand draped over the top of the steering wheel and his face is relaxed. This is the Jason I'm used to. Even lit up by that dark orange light and his eyes golden. He doesn't look at me, and doesn't speak once until the song is over. I don't blame him, I'm glad he kept quiet. But even though he's so quiet this makes me feel closer to him somehow. Just Jason and I and Turn The Page. Like it used to be with me and Lars, but we didn't have enough life experience to understand this song.

Watching Jason mouth the words almost makes me think he can see what I'm thinking. He's telling me how miserable I am, and the song knows better than anyone or anything. This song and my sweet amber.

"Smoke the day's last cigarette, remembering what she said..."

Jason takes a turn down a road out of the direct sunlight and I can't see his face anymore. It hurts my chest almost as much as the lyrics.

If only I could remember what she said.

But I was drunk. The last chorus comes around, and I mouth along to it too. Jason notices, and I pretend I don't see him. Again it reminds me of me and Lars, they way we used to act, nearly fifteen years ago. Still playing this cassette, still trying to grasp its meaning.

\--------------------------

The guitar fades out and me and Jason are left in near silence, only broken up by the sound of Jason's giant engine. He pressed a few buttons on the radio and it goes back to and FM feed. It's playing Van Halen, so he leaves it.

"Did the guys see your hickeys yet?"

"Hell no! Lars would rip me a new asshole until he figured out who they came from."

"Fran gave them to you?"

"Do you honestly think that would be a good enough story for him? He wants juicy details," I say, choking on my words. It makes Jason giggle. "Don't let 'em see. I have another sweatshirt in there, it's got a...like a faded ass Slayer logo on it. You can take if you want." He moves his hands while talking to give me a better idea of what he's talking about, but has to grab back onto the wheel when he nearly misses the turn.

"Alright. Thanks Newkid."

"No problem."

He parks up next to the garage door, but there's no light spilling out from under it. Kirk and Lars must still be gone. They probably won't be back until early morning, that's usually how it went. I just wish I knew where the hell they were going dressed up like that.

Jason helps me take the shit I brought into the studio, and he pretends to forget about the cassettes in his truck. It's okay though, because I don't need to hear Turn The Page again. Me and Jason organize some of the shit in the main living area of the studio, because we know Lars isn't going to. We turn on the TV for background noise, and I promised him I'd stay there until Kirk and Lars came back. He tells me not to leave at all, but I know better than to interfere with drunk Kirk and Lars. I don't want to walk in on something I didn't need to see, like last time.

Hopefully neither of them remember that.

They probably don't, they filled themselves up with hard liquor and had to get Jason to pick them up from the bar. But when they got back, I walked into the living room and Kirk was on his knees between Lars' legs. It was... Interesting. I guess. I didn't mention it, because it probably happens quite a lot, and they don't need me knowing that I've seen it. It's none of my business, I just don't want to see any of that shit again. So I keep that to myself too, I leave the truth out of my reasoning when I tell Jason that I'll be leaving when they come back.

"Are you coming tomorrow?" He asks, with a shine in his eyes that I can't read. I honestly have to think about the answer. What's today? Tuesday? I have no idea. Bob's not coming until next week, so I really have no reason to be here. I just don't have anywhere else to go. "Yeah, I guess. I don't know what I'm gonna do," my response comes out bitchier than I intended, and Jason looks like he regrets asking.

Fuck. Now I feel bad.

"We're gonna try and set Lars' mics back up in the big room," The big room being the foyer that Lars just had to have his drums in. The high ceiling and wide walls were made for "perfect acoustics".

Fuckin' prick.

"Alright, I can come by and help."

"We were gonna go eat tomorrow too, you should come."

"I don't want to make you guys pay for-"

"You should come. You heard me Het, this isn't up for debate," he chuckles the words. I smile behind a fist. "Fine, shit."

\--------------------

Kirk and Lars finally come back at nearly one in the morning. I dozed off on the couch like eight times, while me and Jason sat and watched a cheesy game show. I jolt awake when the door hits the wall and Lars throws his keys on the counter. I twist around to see what they're up to, and it's a...weird, I guess, weird sight. Kirk looks sober. So he must have driven Lars back. Lars is fucking smashed. He leans back onto the counter, looking like he's about to pass out any minute. I've seen him do shit just like this, and I know he's going to puke sometime later, I just hope it's not on Kirk. "Welcome back, princess."

Lars yells, "Fuck you," at me and rubs his hands down his face. His fingers take traces of eyeliner with them and Kirk rubs his cheek with his thumb to clean him up, laughing. "You look like a sad teenager, dumbass."

"Shut the fuck up." Kirk licks his thumb and rubs his face free of the eyeliner. That was some funny shit. Lars smacks his hand away and pushes him by the chest.

 

Jason's kind of staring at me like he's asking me not to leave, but I have to. I wanna sleep in my own bed, and his parents are home. I was just babysitting. "Alright, you guys are back, I'm gonna head out and clear my shit from the apartment."

"You're moving in here?"

Kirk's eyes light up as he says that, I feel like a total asshole when I have to crush his hope.

The look on his face fading makes me thirsty for ale almost fucking instantly.

"No, me and Jason went back to the house and Francesca cleared out her shit. I'm moving back into my house."

Kirk's toothy grin is gone, and his gaze falls to the floor. "Oh. Okay man." Is all he says while he turns back to Lars.

That hurt. So fucking bad.

I have to get out of here before it gets worse or I'm going to lose my mind. "I'll see you guys tomorrow. Night." And I take my keys from the table. Jason and Lars tell me goodnight too, but Kirk doesn't say anything. I really hope he doesn't find out that I've been drinking, I can only imagine how crushed he'd look if he knew I went against his word. I don't know how I could deal with that, other than drowning it in more beer.

Driving back to my house, taking those streets that Jason took, doesn't feel as satisfying as I thought it would. Clearing out the apartment was fucking awful. I had to clean up so I didn't feel quite as classless as I did when I first stayed there. Unfortunately, I didn't have the strength to leave the beer in the fridge. I took it with me, and now the bottles are rattling against one another in the backseat.

I can't relate to anything on the radio tonight, thank god. Because I have enough to think about without things being reconnected in my head. I skip past a couple stations and one of them is playing Fastlove, I get out of there before I get too far into my thoughts. I don't even know what I left it on, something to fill the car while I drive back to my house in the dark.

The house is dark again when I get in there. I half expect Fran to greet me, or at least see the bedroom light on. But the whole house is dark save for the light spilling through the windows. It's dead, and it's empty, just like the apartment. I completely thought this would feel better, too.

I'm so fucking sad.

I don't even do myself the grace of sleeping in my own bed. I collapsed into the couch with that now warm six pack and don't get up again. I put the rest of my groceries away, but I don't have enough patience to let the beers chill before I tear into them. My boots come off, as do my pants; they end up on the floor somewhere. Eventually I get sick of watching cop dramas with Jason's sweater choking my out, so I take it off, bunch it up and use it as a pillow.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh boy. I feel like I should issue some type of warning before this one. This includes a vivid description of a dream, and a huuuuge story progression. Enjoy.

I woke up to the sound of a heavy glass bottle hitting the floor. It was in my hand when I passed out, I guess, because my arm's hanging over the side of the couch and the floor is covered in sticky ale. 

That's not the only thing though. 

I really should've thought twice before using Jason's sweatshirt as a pillow, because his scent was filling my head while I was unconscious...and hearing Fastlove on the radio earlier, I guess...

It got to me. Or at least to my subconscious. 

I try to sit up so I can find something to wipe up the mess on the floor, until my boxers touch my skin and I notice there's another mess I've got to clean up. 

I genuinely fucking wish I didn't remember my dream. I really do. But my boxers are soaked in cum and I know exactly fucking why it happened. That dream I had was vivid. Disgustingly vivid. I don't think I'm as desperate as my mind tells me I am, but Christ....

I can't bring myself to be repulsed by the dream. 

In typical dream fashion, I have no idea where I am, how I got there, or even what my surroundings look like. It's dark, but it's a thin enough darkness that I can see my predicament. I'm laying on the floor, against a wall it seems. I'm completely naked. My entire body is covered in goosebumps. Wherever I am, it's cold. Freezing cold. The only warmth I feel is on my dick and my inner thighs. For whatever reason, my dream doesn't allow me to look down. All I can do is stare up, but it's too dark to focus on anything in particular, like a ceiling. The ceiling could be thousands of feet high, or I could be in a seven by seven box and wouldn't know the difference. I'm about to panic until I feel a warm, wet tongue run up my dick, from the base to the tip, painfully slow. Arms are resting on my thighs, making sure I don't try to close my legs, and their hands are toying with my cock. 

But still my dream won't let me see who it is. 

Despite the fact that it feels so good, my body is protesting as much as it can. I'm trying to push whoever it is off of me, and I try to close my legs and kick them away, but I feel completely powerless. My fighting officially completely dissolves when they hold my dick in place and lick the tip again. 

It does feel good. Why would I protest against someone giving good head?

It gets harder to breathe, and I don't know if it's because of the darkness, or because the person between my legs squeezes my cock to get my attention. Finally my dream lets me look down and I can barely make out the shape of Jason's face. 

Of fucking course it's Jason. 

But I don't budge. I stay put where I am, and let him go about his business. It feels good, for fuck's sake, I'm not about to kick him away. 

My dream isn't letting me anyway. Now that I've seen who it is I can't look away. I'm fixated on the way his masculinity melts away when he's got a dick against the side of his mouth. He smiles up to me, looking embarrassed at first, until he does something that makes me groan and he knows he's got me in the palm of his hand. 

"Yeah?"

He squeezes again and drags his hand up, never letting the tight grip go. I try to let my head fall back but my dream won't let me. All I can do is squeeze my eyes shut as another groan rolls out of me. 

"I'm hardly doing anything. When was the last time someone made you cum?" 

The words on their lonesome somehow made my heart pick up the pace a little. I tell him it's been a long time, but that's not true and I know it. I just saw Dave a couple days ago. And me and Dave only see each other for one thing. 

He chuckles, "I can tell," in a more patronizing fashion than the real Jason can muster. He moves his hand again, with that fucking vice grip and I finally toss my head back. I can tell Jason isn't actually trying to patronize me though, his intentions are much different. I know not only because my dream tells me so, but because Jason is fully clothed, and I'm completely naked. 

I wonder if dreamworld Het has Dave's hickeys. Must suck, trying to pleasure someone who's covered in someone else's hickeys. 

Even if I do, Jason doesn't seem to mind. He doesn't seem to mind anything. He goes back to using his mouth and it feels just like the head I got from Dave. Amazing. But this time I don't have the constant fear that he's going to bite my fucking dick off. I'm able to relax into the wall, hold the back of Jason's head and give the occasional groan of approval. 

What a vivid fucking imagination I've got. I can feel everything, I can feel his mouth and his breath and the vibrations of his voice and even his hair in my hand. All must have been part of the equation, waking up having blown a load in my fucking sleep. I don't remember cumming in my dream, it must have ended right when it got good. I can make the connection; good orgasm, my body tensed up and I dropped the bottle. And now here I am, back in reality. 

Questioning my sanity. 

Never once, in all of my years, have I ever thought of Jason like this. Ever. 

Alright, maybe once. Back in '86 when I first heard saw him for the audition. I thought he had gorgeous hair and I liked his skinny jeans, but it was back around the same time I'd been fucking Lars. Which is something I don't want to think nor talk about. 

I just figured my life was drifting into my head and I started projecting desire onto other people. I wouldn't say that's happening now, because I don't desire Dave. I hate Dave. I have absolutely no problem hurting or using Dave. That isn't desire, that's hatefucking that I need to blow off steam. I'm hoping this dream doesn't mean desire either. I have enough on my plate to deal with without throwing wanting to fuck my bassist into the mix. Any thoughts I might have had about Jason disappeared the second his shoulders got broader. He's too fucking big. He's not like Lars or Kirk, he doesn't have the same girly figure they do. Any attraction I could have to him wouldn't be justifiable by my go-to, "It must be the girlish waist and the skinny legs." I at least still feel a little straight when I have that mindset. I can't do that with Jason. He's too much like me. 

Maybe it's not Jason's body you want. Or his face. Maybe it's something more than that. 

If it was, I wouldn't have had a dream about him sucking me off. Shut the fuck up. 

The last thought I have before changing my boxers and moving to my bed is, "Please let my next wet dream be about a girl."

 

I must have fallen asleep at three or so, in my bed, I mean. I woke up at one in the afternoon, to the beep of my phone, leaving a voicemail. It's Jason. Great. But I don't know what he's saying until I pick up and press the phone to my face. 

"Yeah?"

"James, shit, are you okay?" God I do kind of sound like fucking shit. 

"Yep, just woke up, what do you need?" My voice is groggy and slow. "I called you a bit ago and you didn't answer. We're at a restaurant right now, you said you uh...

You said you were coming."

Ah fuck. When he said they were going to eat I didn't realize they meant for lunch. 

"Shit..I'm.."

"I can bring you back something if you want."

"No it's...it's okay. I'm really sorry, I'll..." 

I rub my eyes and sigh into the phone. 

"I'll see you later. I gotta go. I'm sorry Newkid." 

I have to hang up before I hear what Jason has to say on the other side. And then I say in bed for little while longer. 

When I get in the shower, all I can think of is my guilt. I've impressed myself with how much of an asshole I'm capable of being. I need to be there. They're my band. And I'm isolating myself as much as possible just because I'm a selfish piece of shit. I grit my teeth and hit the shower tile with a balled fist. I'm going to rot away to nothing because I feel like I have to. I'm an asshole. 

I'm an asshole. 

I stand and let the water pelt my face for a few minutes. I can feel the veins in my forehead pulsing, I'm fucking livid, and the only person I have to blame is myself. 

I shouldn't be this mad for just missing lunch. But I just keep letting my band down and I want it to fucking stop. 

When I get back out of the shower, the phone is ringing again. I wipe my hand on the towel around my waist and pick up the phone. 

I hope it's not-

"Hey James, it's Jason." 

God fucking dammit. 

"Hey.."

"I was just gonna let you know that we're headed back to the studio, I got you somethin'."

"Fuck, Newkid. You didn't have to do that."

"I know, but I said I would, I'm a man of my word, Het."

Jason's in a better mood than he should be. I guess that's good, but I feel awful. The fact that he spent cash on me makes me feel even worse. 

'I'm a man of my word.'

The words feel like an involuntary stab at me. 

"I know, I know. Thanks man."

"Now get your ass to the studio so I can give you your food." 

I really don't want food. Jason's wasting his money and his time. 

"Alright. I'll be there in a minute."

Jason hooks the phone and the call drops. Then I'm left listening to the low beeping until I hook my own phone. 

Maybe I'll bring a couple of my mics over, and see if any of Lars' recording shit is here. 

The foyer seems more dead than the rest of the house. It's freezing, and all the hung up flags and posters are completely still. Touching my guitars, they're cold too. Lars' recording shit is in here, some of it at least, but I have no idea why. I don't remember Lars' drums ever being at my house. They're mixed up in a box with my microphone cords and other strange connections. 

I think I'll bring Kirk a box of my strings, like an apology gift. 

Alright, recording shit for Lars, strings for Kirk...

I haven't got shit for Jason. I hope he's not too bothered. 

Wait, actually...his sweatshirt, I still have that. Seeing it reminds me something I used to do back in high school, when I'd give an old girlfriend her clothes back. I'd write a note on the tag of a shirt or put a note in the pocket of their pants. 

Panties, I'd keep. Unfortunately. They were immediate proof that I'd gotten laid. 

I guess it couldn't hurt to write Jason a note and leave it in the pocket for him to find. That's super childish, I know, I'm a millionaire in my thirties, I shouldn't be leaving high school grade notes. But Jason's on my mind, badgering at my head. The guilt of letting him down is getting to me, and I just...

I just can't think of anything else. 

I try and dress relatively nice for today. Of course my nice clothes are a button up, black slacks and my boots, but it's better than the sweatshirt. Popped up collar to hide as much of the hickeys as possible. They're starting to go away by now anyway, they've faded to a pinkish, irritated color. If I don't draw attention to them, they won't pay attention to them. 

I sit down with a yellow notepad, flip past all my lyrics and doodles and find a clean page. 

I write 'NEWKID,' at the top of the paper and immediately regret my decision. My mind's drawn a blank, and I've got no clue what I'm supposed to say. Do I apologize for being such a dick? Do I tell him more in depth of what this whole situation has done to me? Do I ask him for help with my addiction? 

It takes me a while to realize that I've been doodling on the top edge of the paper. 

I've drawn an eyeless dude with barbed wire around his throat. At least that's what it's supposed to be, it won't look like that to Jason. If I even decide to give this to him. 

"I'M SO SORRY." 

Ah shit, this is a pen, isn't it? I can't erase that. I try to scribble it out but it's still visible, if I scribble anymore I'll tear the paper. 

"YOU ALREADY KNEW ABOUT FRAN WHEN I GOT TO BILLYS SO I FIGURED ILL TELL YOU WHAT REALLY HAPPENED, BEST I CAN AT LEAST. I GOT DRUNK. I GOT REALLY DRUNK, AND HARDLY REMEMBER SHIT. ALL I KNOW IS THAT FRAN WAS SICK OF MY SHIT AND IVE REALLY HURT HER BAD." 

So I guess we're going down the 'help me' route. 

"IVE NEVER HIT HER, THATS NOT WHAT I MEAN. I WAS NEVER THERE FOR HER AND I NEVER LISTENED. JASON, I HURT EVERYONE I CARE ABOUT. 

I DON'T THINK I CAN DO THIS ON MY OWN. BUT IM NOT GOING TO KIRK FOR HELP. HIM AND LARS ARE TOO FUCKING CLOSE, AND LARS DOESNT THINK THERES A PROBLEM. I KNOW THERES A PROBLEM. I KEEP HURTING PEOPLE I CARE ABOUT. I HURT FRAN AND I HURT ALL OF YOU. 

I THINK IVE HURT YOU THE WORST."

My chest starts to tighten. I don't like what my hand is doing, I wish it would stop. 

"IVE NEVER PAID ATTENTION TO YOU. I NEVER TRIED TO DEFEND YOU FROM LARS AND I NEVER GAVE YOU A BREAK WHEN YOU FUCKED SOMETHING UP. I HAVE NO WAY TO JUSTIFY THAT."

I didn't realize I'd be apologizing to Jason for the last ten fucking years. That wasn't my intention but it was all I could think about when I saw Newkid written in my handwriting. 

"I KEEP LETTING YOU DOWN. I DONT KNOW HOW HIGHLY YOU THINK OF ME BUT EVEN IF YOU HAVE A SLIVER OF RESPECT FOR ME , YOU HAVE TWO SLIVERS TOO MUCH. THE BIGGEST PROBLEM IS IVE LOST ALL THE MOTIVATION TO CHANGE MYSELF FOR THE BETTER. IM SO SORRY JASON. I DONT KNOW WHAT THIS NOTE MEANS, AND I DONT CARE IF I SOUND LIKE A PUSSY WHEN I WRITE THIS. BUT I SERIOUSLY FUCKING NEED YOU. I NEED YOU TO HELP ME FIX MYSELF BEFORE I DO SOMETHING REALLY FUCKING STUPID. 

I LOVE YOU MAN. YOURE PART OF MY FAMILY, DONT FORGET THAT, NO MATTER WHAT I DO OR SAY. YOURE MY FAMILY AND I TRUST YOU. 

-J"

Near the bottom I doodle another little monster, this one has too many eyes and is wrapped in bandages. The only thing I know about his artistic preferences is that Jason liked the art for Justice, but I can't draw like that, so I'm doodling whatever my pen will let me. It kind of looks like shit but these are just...personality charms to make him remember where this note came from. 

Geez, you might as well spray it with your perfume and fold it into a fucking swan, you fruit. 

Shut the fuck up. 

I doodle a couple more little scribbles on the borders, rip it out, nearly tear off half the fucking page and fold it up. It's uneven, and looks terrible. But I write one last thing on the top of the folded mass. 

"OPEN ME IN PRIVATE." 

And I slip it into the pocket. Now I hope I won't run into traffic on the way over, so that food doesn't get cold. 

I have to stop for gas on the way. My because my console starts beeping at me. I pick up a cheap little lighter and a pack of cigarettes while I'm in there, hopefully Kirk is okay with it. But if I'm not gonna drink around him then I'm going to smoke. It's one or the other, he can pick. I can't help it, I have to open the pack even on the way out of the gas station to fill up my car. With the cigarette between my lips, I wait to light it until my tank is full and I'm back in my car, so I don't get fined for smoking at a gas station. 

I guess I'm driving too fast, because the smoke I blow out the window blows right back into my face. And that does a pretty good job of pissing me off. I go through two cigarettes on the way to the studio, not without accidentally letting some ashes drift into my beard. I make sure the get that shit out of there before I get a mouthful of burnt ash, but it leaves behind a black smudge on my chin. 

Jason's truck is in the driveway, and it's dusted over in pollen from the yard. He hasn't moved it since he took me back yesterday. That means they all piled into the same car to leave. I guess I'm relieved for not going. 

Upon opening the door, I have to back into it, holding all this shit and trying to keep the note in its place. Praying to the sweet lord that it doesn't fall into the wrong hands. 

"You're alive!" Greeted by Lars. Just who I wanted to see. 

I dump the boxes and the sweatshirt on the counter and Kirk immediately gravitates to me. "What's in the fucking box?" He says, obviously in reference to 'Se7en', with his hands on my shoulders. Kirk's trying to look over me; he's on his tippy toes. 

"Brought you some shit from my house." I scrounge through the box for the strings and a pick-stash. 

"I found some Ernie Ball strings and a couple of our old picks. I didn't look at 'em but I think they're from Black."

He takes the little box from my hands and slides it open. "Yeah, these are the shiny ones that I kept dropping onstage." He holds one of the picks to the light and there's tons of scratches across it, along with grubby fingerprints. 

Lars sticks his hands in the box himself to find his gifts. "Shit, I needed this," he says as he takes the cord for the stand-mic out of the box. 

"I know you did. I brought the cords for these, too." I take out two mic heads with pop protectors, still wrapped in plastic. 

I look up for the first time and notice Jason leaning on the counter across from me. 

"Oh, Newkid, I brought you somethin' too." I slide the sweatshirt over to him, and as he picks it up, he hears his thumb crush something in the pocket. He raises an eyebrow at me, and all I do is grin. Kirk and Lars pay no mind, they seem to be pretty happy with what I've brought them. 

Jason slides his hand into the pocket, and finds the folded up yellow note. He examines the outside, mouths the words written on top, and leaves in the direction of the bathroom without another glance. 

I'm scared out of my mind for his reaction. I didn't expect him to find the note immediately. 

"Is that all you brought?"

Kirk looks up at me, and then frowns. 

"What's that in your beard?" 

"What?" I lie. "...this." Kirk raises his hands up the my face and scratches the black spot with his thumbnail. "Were you smoking?" He asks. 

I pat the box in my back pocket and he rolls his eyes. 

"Why?" 

"So I don't drink."

Maybe if you stopped lying like that you wouldn't have had to write Jason such a painful note. 

Like I said. Shut the fuck up. 

Kirk might not be drinking, but he can't go and tell me not to smoke. That would be overly hypocritical. 

"I mean, I guess that's okay...just don't go relying on it, know what I mean?" Kirk's looking at me, expecting an answer. 

"Don't replace beer with cigarettes. Got it."

I'm sure I've already blackened my liver. There's less shame in blackening my lungs. 

Lars disappears to the back with his new toy, and Kirk skids across the kitchen to the fridge. 

I notice there's new notes up on there, held up by magnets. 

A shopping list, a reminder to Kirk from Lars, 'Take the fucking trash out, shithead', and a post it note stuck to the freezer that reads, 'Jason 4:00'. 

Kirk pulls out a brown box from the fridge and sets it on the counter. There's a burger inside, on a bed of onion rings. Too bad it's cold now, reheating it, it won't be the same. 

"Jason bought you food even though your stubborn ass didn't show up."

"I was asleep!" 

"Sure you were." Kirk smiles as he preheats the oven so I can avoid eating something microwaved for a while. Seeing him smile reminds me that he's gotten his teeth fixed recently, I'm not so sure I like it. He isn't the same long haired adolescent with the fucked up teeth he used to be. Now he's got his short fluffy curls tumbling around on his head, sometimes being tamed by a hairnets, and no more fucked up teeth. 

I hate how much everyone changes. 

Kirk leans against the oven and crosses his arms over his chest. He's already wearing one of my shirts that I brought yesterday. 

"Dammit Hammett! I just brought those clothes!" I say. 

He snickers. "'Dammit Hammett'. Write that on your guitar for the next tour." 

"At least wash it. You got something on it."

"I haven't washed anything in a long time. The washing machines broken."

"How the fuck did you break the washing machine?"

"Apparently, you're not supposed to put sneakers in the washing machine," 

I pinch the bridge of my nose and shake my head. 

"Dammit Hammett." 

He smiles again, and I see his newly fixed teeth. I guess it's not that bad, his smile does look better, but it's much less childlike. Oh well, his fuzzy, wild curls will suffice. 

Kirk's older than me, by a lot. But he's always looked like a careless teenager. While I can appreciate his innocence, he needs to learn to stand up for himself. 

Whenever I get my own help I promise to help Kirk with his lack of confidence. 

Speaking of my own help, Jason's been gone for quite a while. 

Kirk takes the food out of the box and breaks it up so he can properly reheat it for me. While he does that, I tell him I'm gonna go check on Jason, and he nods. Lars is in the foyer, I can hear his snare drum echoing off the wall, so I know I have at least a couple minutes of Jason to myself. 

When I come down the hallway, the bathroom door is open, and Jason is sitting against the wall outside of it. He's got his hand on the back on his head, and he looks...

Broken. 

He raises his head up to see who made the footprints, and when he sees me, his head drops again. His eyes were red and puffy, and his cheeks were wet. 

Ah fuck. 

"Ah, shit, Newkid.." I say, as I drop to my knees and sit next to him. He refuses to look at me. 

He's got the note in his hand, unfolded, and it's quivering. He's quivering. 

"Jason," 

He looks up, but not at me. He wipes his face on his shoulder. 

"Why didn't you just ask me?" He says. His voice is quiet, and strained. It reminds me of Turn the Page. 

"I don't like talking. You know I don't." 

Makes me feel like a fruit. 

"I know I just didn't...I didn't think you wanted my help. I saw you destroying yourself and I just wanted to help without you noticing." 

"Jason.."

"I didn't want to make a big deal out of it, you know? I'll help you, Het..but.."

But?

"But you need to let me. No more of this secretive shit. And no more pushing me away. Pushing US away. You need to cut the shit and let us in." 

"I know. I'm sorry." 

"Don't be sorry. Just fix it. If not for yourself or Fran, fix it for me."

My ears heat up a little. "Alright, Newkid." We're quiet for a moment, and he lets himself lean against me. 

His head falls to my shoulder. 

"Thank you."

We hear the door to the foyer creak open and it's our cue to break. He stands up in time with me, and gives me a quick guy-hug, the shoulder touch hug, and lets me go. I let him fix up his face before he sees us again. 

I guess it's good that Jason's willing to help me, even if it's tough love. I need some of that right about now, maybe I'll get my shit together before I let myself rot away. 

Kirk greets me back to the kitchen by sliding a glass plate with my food across the counter. It looks a hell of a lot better than I thought it would. 

Kirk grins at me as I take a seat on the barstool. 

"Well shit, you're welcome." 

I give Kirk a vocal, open mouthed thank you, making sure he can see my chewed up food. He put his hands up to block the sight and laughs. 

"Gnarly dude," 

Lars comes back, beaming. The cords must have worked just fine. "Thanks Het," is all he says. 

They leave me to eat in peace, which is nice, but I quickly get annoyed by the sound of my own chewing. As if on cue, Jason walks back in to diffuse it. He's wiping his face still, his eyes are still red and irritated. He sits in the barstool next to me, and I hear the note in his back pocket crinkle. I nod the burger in his direction, with the four bites taken out of it. "This is good," I kind of say, around the food in my cheeks. "I made them put onions. Because you're weird, and you like onions, for some reason." 

"Lars likes anchovies on his pizza. So don't go giving me shit." 

\------------

While Lars and Kirk are in the back, it's just me and Jason on the couch. In the couple of hours that I've been there, Jason hasn't really left my side. I appreciate it. I went to Jason for a reason, because he's really all I have right now. I've made it pretty clear that the rest of the people I know aren't really of much use to me. I guess I could go to Bob, I'm gonna have to talk to him anyway about my situation. I just don't imagine he'd be constructive, exactly. 

"You know what?" Jason turns to me and interrupts my aimless thought. 

"Hm?"

"We should go to your place. Just me and you. Hang out for a while, I'll stay the night if you want. We can start helping you out tomorrow."

"So, get drunk?"

"Yeah. Get smashed and pass out on the floor. Then we'll start fresh, nurse each others hangovers and shit. We'll fix you up." 

I chuckle, for a second, thinking that he's joking, but it does sound nice. 

"Alright. I trust you." 

"I won't tell Kirk."

"Thanks man, please don't."

"You haven't said anything at all?" 

"No. He thinks I'm holding true and I'm not about to see that hurt look in his eyes again."

Jason looks at his shoes. 

"Yeah, I know that look. Sometimes I'll catch him like that when him and Lars fight. You're not here enough to see it but they fight a lot."

"Really?"

"Lars just drags him around by his collar and sometimes Kirk snaps."

I can't help but grimace. Lars does do that, I just didn't think Kirk minded at all. 

"My next mission is to help Kirk defend himself," 

"I'll help you. I don't wanna see Lars walk all over him anymore."

What the hell would I do without Jason? He's willing to help me out no question. I wonder why? 

"We're gonna fix everything, Newkid. You and me. We'll turn this shit around." 

Lars kicks the door open and the handle hits the wall. Me and Jason both jump. 

"What the hell?"

"Kirk is a fucking child!" He grumbles, running his hands through his hair. "What happened?" I ask, Jason practically launches from the couch and pushes through the door, wherever Lars came from. Looks like we're splitting up to deal with this. 

"He's acting like a fucking baby. He's bitching about you. He's worried about you, drinking and disappearing and shit. He knows you've always been like that!"

"I have always been like that. What did he say?"

"He wants you to stay here. Like, with us. He wants you to move in. But you're not my kid. I don't want you here, no offense."

"I don't want to stay here. But I don't want to be an asshole to Kirk either."

"Then let him down gently, I guess. Anything to get him the fuck out of my ass about it. If I have to hear him grovel about you one more fucking time I'm going to strangle him."

"Alright, untwist your panties and let me talk to him."

Lars climbs onto the counter as I follow Jason. I can already hear sobbing as I make my way to the back, and nearly slip over my shoes, to get to Kirk as fast as possible. He's sitting on the table of the back room, with his socks up on the table and his back against the wall. Jason's in a chair by the table with his elbows propped up. 

Kirk is crying. Hard. I don't think I've seen him cry like that since Cliff. 

Jason turns to look at me and motions to Kirk. 

"James, I'm sorry-"

"No, Kirk, stop it. Why are you crying?"

He wipes his face with the ball of his palm and tries to avoid my eyes. "I just wanted you to stay here. I'm fucking scared for you, James. You're fucking yourself up and I want to make sure you're okay. Just if I can see you, when you go to bed and when you wake up then I know you're okay.."

"Kirk.." 

Jason's eyes look sunken in when he looks back at me again. 

"Me and Jason are trying to fix it. I just don't want to stress you out."

"I'd be less stressed if you stayed here with us." 

"Alright, I'll make you a deal."

Kirk's eyes look a little less dull. 

"Me and Jason have plans for tonight, and I think you and Lars need to work this shit out. And I'll.."

I take a deep breath. 

"I'll be back tomorrow with a couple travel bags and I'll move in. I'll be here with you guys, for when Bob comes back. It'll be alright, okay?"

Kirk nods. Jason looks at the table and cracks a tiny smile. 

I still don't want to move in. I don't want to be here and come between Kirk and Lars. I don't want to be caught in the gunfire. But they are my family and I need them if I want to change. I want to change for them, and I need their help to do so. 

Yes. I even need Lars. 

I ruffle Kirk's messy, fluffy curls. "It'll be alright little man. I promise you that."

I leave Jason and Kirk on their own for a little bit. Now I have to go explain to Lars that I'm moving in and why I'm doing it. 

Lars looks a little calmer now. He's sitting up on the counter with a beer in his hand, swinging his legs. 

"What'd he say now?"

"Alright, look." Lars looks up at me and his face is twisted in concern. 

"I'm gonna move in-"

Before I can finish my sentence, Lars starts to push himself off the counter. 

"Wait wait wait, hold on. I'm moving in when for when Bob gets back so we're all in the same place. I'll bring my own shit here, I'll move by myself, I'll be out of the way. But I'm gonna come stay here and you need to understand that." 

Lars swirls the contents of his bottle around while thinking of an answer. "Alright. I get it. Don't bug me okay? Don't get in the way of shit either." 

I could punch him right now. 

"I won't. I'm not trying to piss you off, I'm just trying to make things more convenient."

He just nods this time, and kicks off the counter. 

Jason and Kirk come back through that door and Kirk approaches Lars first, surprisingly. And he hugs him. Lars even hugs him back. 

"I'm sorry man. I didn't mean to freak out on you."

"Don't worry 'bout it." 

 

\----------

 

Me and Jason take my truck back to my place. We stopped by a liquor store, and a video rental, before pulling into my driveway. I don't know when the next time I'll see my house is, but I expect to make the best of it while I'm there. 

Jason took a case of Carlsberg, just one, but I imagined he would drink the whole thing on his lonesome. So I got my own bud too. He sinks into my couch and throws an arm around the back. "I didn't think you were gonna let me come back with ya."

"I like beer," I say, shrugging. He smiles and it crinkles his eyes, almost completely shut. 

I fucking love that smile. 

I toss him a bottle opener and shut off the light. We have seventies cowboy movies to catch up on, we left off back in '89. 

It takes Jason an entire beer to start speaking lines along with the movie. I don't remember anything from this, but he seems to know. Because he's giving me his Clint Eastwood face and he recites the lines. I snort and shake my head at him. 

Once I've gotten in three beers, and I get started on my fourth, I start to give Jason the same look. He laughs so hard that his voice doesn't even come through anymore, just a wheeze. This reminds me why I get drunk with Jason. He's a happy drunk. And I'm not using this ale to drown out sadness. 

It's a bit like jerking off. Sometimes you do it to make up for sadness and sometimes you do it for genuine enjoyment. 

"Don't laugh with the glass on your mouth, dumbass! You'll spill all over yourself!" 

"Fuck off!"

"Then you'll have to take off that polo and let me stare at those hickeys."

"I don't know what you're talking about," 

"Bulllllllshit." 

He grabs at my collar, and I smack his hand. I'm weak, laughing so hard. I don't even know why I'm laughing anymore. 

"Lemme see!"

"Fuck you!"

His fingers twist into my shirt and he grabs my collar, pulling it down. I put my entire hand over his face and push him away. 

"I can see 'em," he mumbles, against my palm. 

"No shit, I'm covered in the goddamn things."

"You look like you've got the plague. Might as well roll you up in the sheets and dump you into the river," 

"Do it. Or better yet, burn me." 

"I'll shove a stick up your ass and roast you like a hog." 

Jason's finger jabs into my chest, I give him a fake whine of pain and smack his hand again. 

I can barely hear Jason laughing anymore, because my landline rings. 

"Hold on, let me get that." 

Getting to the kitchen, I stumble over my boots, but I get to the phone. 

"Yes?"

"James."

It's Kirk. He doesn't seem to be in the same mood as me. My smile begins to melt off my face. 

"Kirk? What's wrong?" 

"Can you come here? Please? I need you right now, you don't have to bring your-"

He stops talking and the microphone rubs against clothes. 

"Kirk?"

Silence. 

"Kirk!" 

Jason pauses the movie in the living room and walks into the kitchen with me. 

"Sorry, I'm...Lars is really fucking angry...I don't know what to do. You fixed it earlier and I need you here." 

His voice is different than before. He seems to be crying again. 

"Okay, Kirk, calm down. Me and Jason will be there in a minute. Just stay away from him and we'll be there. Don't be afraid of him okay? He can't do shit."

"Thank you," 

Kirk hangs up before me. I give Jason a somber look and ask him to turn off the TV. I grab my keys, but before I walk out the door, he grabs my shoulder. 

"James. For the love of god, be careful." I nod. 

Please. I've driven much farther distances much drunker than this. As I climb into the truck, Jason rightfully questions what the hell is going on. 

"I don't know. Kirk was crying into the phone, needed our help. I made a promise I'm gonna keep, so we're off." Jason seems a little pissy that we're having to go back to the studio already. I share his frustration, the couple of hours I had alone with Jason were great and I had intentions of letting things flow that way until one of us got piss drunk. 

"Are we staying there tonight?" Jason asks, a bit miffed. "Probably. Depends on what Kirk needs. This is a little obnoxious, but I'm doing my best not to get annoyed." 

"I'm annoyed," 

"Well, do me a favor and don't tell them that." 

Headlights whirr past my truck and mix together in my eyes. Shit, why is everyone driving so fast tonight? 

"Why is Kirk so afraid of Lars? He knows he's not going to do anything. It's not like putting him in his place is gonna risk his position."

"Kirk's position?" 

"Yeah. Lars wouldn't do that."

"I don't know," I grouse. "He's done it before." 

Jason shrugs and laughs. "Lars needs to loosen up. He needs a little uh...reality check, you know?" 

I have to strain my eyes to see if that light is orange or red, but the car to my left goes, so I step on the gas too. 

"I think we could all use a reality check."

"James, slow."

"What?"

"Slow! James! Stop!"

My vision warps into thick darkness as I hear the sound of aluminum folding in on itself, and glass shattering. 

 

What's happening? 

Hello?

Jason?


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a bit of a long one, so bear with me. 
> 
> Heads up, this chapter is from Jason's perspective.

James?

James..? 

Hello? 

It's dark. It's extremely dark, and quiet. There's a mechanical buzzing in my ears, that seems to be passing between the left and right sides of my brain. Then comes the pain, clinging to the noise and traveling with it. Searing pain, within my skull, that I can't get to. I can't do anything to help that pain, I just have to try and ignore it. 

When my eyes open, I focus on the nearest object until I can figure out what the fuck is going on. I can see my hands, although blurry. I can barely see them, but wherever I am allows light to pass through, granting me at least a little bit of vision. 

I'm becoming a little more aware now. I can feel something digging into my abdomen, and my chest. 

It's a seatbelt. 

A seatbelt? Where am I?

I try to move my left arm to undo the buckle but it won't budge. So I move the other arm, and when I do, my body drops against a mess of shattered glass. 

I'm in a car, that's flipped onto its side. 

Alright. Okay. I need to stay calm, and piece together the rest of this. 

I roll over, to see the rest of the car, and get a few grains of shattered glass in my palm and my shoulder. 

Fuck. 

No. 

James. 

I've thrown myself toward him, nudging him, and gripping his shirt, trying to wake him. But he's not waking up. "James! God fucking dammit, hear me. Hear me.."

He's limp. His seatbelt has him locked against the seat, thank god, if it hadn't he may have crushed me or he may have been ejected from the car entirely. The drivers side door is wrapped around James' frame, he's wedged between the crumpled door and the console. And his head...

His staples seem to have come undone, and he must have taken another blow to the head, because he's bleeding...

A lot. I'm covered in blood too, but I'm have no clue if it's his or mine.   
I scramble to my knees, not without filling them with glass, and hold James' upper half up with my chest and shoulders. He's still breathing, I can feel his chest rising against me. But his head and face are starting to completely disappear beneath blood. I know that means I have to do something. 

I can't find anything in the car. There's nothing I can use to stop the bleeding, so I take the shirt off my back. Upon grabbing the first done button of my shirt with my left hand, a terrible pain pinches my wrist and the nerve rattles all the way up my arm. I almost screamed, but I suppressed it, and held onto my wrist. The bones are misplaced, I think to myself, feeling the skin. I'll have to keep that in mind. 

I try to ignore the pain of my wrist while unbuttoning with one hand and taking my shirt off, and I get it free. 

There's a gash in my chest, that I hadn't noticed until I removed my shirt and saw the ripped up, wet, bloody spot on the front. It'll have to do either way. 

I kneel closer to James, scraping my knees in the shattered window, and wipe his face, before pressing the cloth to his head. 

Seeing his blood stained eyelashes causes me to wince. I hold the shirt to his head, leave my left arm limp, and rest my cheek against the seat James is still strapped into. Smelling his clothes and feeling his warmth without getting much sign of life starts to get to me. He's there, but he's not...there. I can feel my face twist in frustration and my eyes start to burn. 

"I'm so sorry," I sob. Tears are spilling down my face at a rate I can't control. 

Then my adrenaline runs out. The pain in my head reappears, my arm begins to throb and my knees sting. But I stay still, with my elbow on James' chest and my hand to his forehead. Things slow down again. I don't know how long I've been kneeling here, I completely forget that this is my reality, my eyes blur over in tears. 

The door on James' side is thrown open, but I see it in slow motion. Something reaches across James and presses the button to his seatbelt. I cower and take my shirt back, thinking he's going to fall on top of me, but another pair of arms latches around his chest, and soon two people that I can't see are pulling him out of the car. Then they see me. I can hear them but not understand them. I can barely see them but I notice a hand darting out in my direction. I take it, with my right hand and the shirt draped over my arm, and scramble to my feet. When I touch solid ground again, my knees nearly buckle. There's blood soaking through my jeans from having knelt in the glass for so long. My chest stings, and my ribs ache. 

A medic is holding me from behind, guiding me toward an ambulance. I notice a stretcher being rolled into a separate ambulance. 

"No! Fuck-"

I reach out to the paramedic, and see my disfigured arm. 

"Don't take him. Please. Let me go with him." 

"Sir, you're both going to the same place, let us help." Her voice is hurting me, physically. 

My voice is, too. It's raspy, from sobbing. 

"Stop!" I yell, my voice cracks in this horrible way. I grab at her, and pull her arm away from me, and another paramedic tries to restrain me too. 

Fuck you. You're not going to keep me away from him, not right now. Any time but now. 

I nearly eat shit when I run toward James' stretcher but I'm already out of their control. Someone tries to shut the door with James inside but I grab the handle from behind him. 

"Let me in."

"Sir."

"Open the fucking door!" 

I guess using my Creeping Death scream worked, because the paramedic shrinks before me and lets me on. Then it's just me and James back there, two paramedics in front and a hole in the barrier between the two. Probably so they can talk to us. 

I can't understand them. I'm sobbing again. I'm in a tremendous amount of fucking pain, I'm shirtless, covered in fucking blood. My arm is broken and I'll be fucked if I don't have a concussion. 

While things are mostly quiet, save for the siren, I stick my good arm into the sleeve of the shirt. 

I don't know if I can put my broken wrist into the sleeve. I don't even bother with it. It seems like too much pain, knowing they're just gonna cut my sleeve off at the hospital anyway. So maybe I can save a shirt, even if it's sticking to my back. The blood is still warm. 

James is completely still. 

His face is turned away from me and his hand is on his chest. There's blood smeared across his neck and there's droplets on his shirt, a pattern of droplets and streaks. He doesn't look like he's broken anything but he's lost a lot of blood. Something must have cut open the vein in his forehead for him to have bled that much..

I leave my broken arm in my lap and lean onto the stretcher. Burying my face in my right elbow, I let myself cry. I don't have any shame to show anymore. This is...

Fucking insane. 

For the love of god, let James be okay. 

\----------

I fell asleep next to James in the ambulance. I was woken by the paramedic tapping my shoulder, trying to get me out of the way so he could wheel James out. 

I almost start to panic in my groggy state, but someone holds my shoulders as I stumble out of the back. 

"Hey, sir, calm down. It's okay. He's gonna be alright."

"Let me go with him," I gasp, as he leads me into the emergency room. 

"We have to take of you first, alright? Let us fix up your wrist and we'll let you stay with him, I promise."

"Better hold true to that fucking promise," I grunt. 

He smiles and opens a door for me. 

"You can count on me. My name's Josh, if someone tries to separate you guys again tell them what I said and I'll fix it. Got that?"

"Josh, yeah, I got that,"

He drops me off in a room full of doctors and the doors close. Josh. Josh. Remember that name if they separate us. 

"Here, sir." 

Two doctors are holding another stretcher for me, and I climb onto it no question. I can use it right now. I just hope I don't have to get any x-rays...I remember those from my wrestling days..

I see the radiology sign above my head as they wheel me through the doors. God dammit. 

"My arm is obviously broken, why do I need x-rays?" 

"We just want to make sure we know what we're doing, sir. I'm sorry." 

Real fucking sorry I bet. 

They move me into one of those dark rooms and have to settle me into that chair with the X-ray cameras. 

"Bite down on your hand." 

The female doctor says as she grabs my upper arm and starts to move my wrist under the camera. 

My teeth leave indentions in my fist, and I have to suppress another scream. I just squeeze my eyes shut. 

"I know, just one more, I'm sorry." 

My palm is pressed into my forehead while she moves my arm again. 

"Can you at least drug me up first?" 

She chuckles as she gives me my arm back, as gently as she can. 

"I can't. But you'll be out soon, I promise." 

"Out as in...?"

"Unconscious."

Thank god. 

My wrist is throbbing again and I start to doze off. They're wheeling me into what I can only imagine is surgery, or at least that's what I hope it is. 

I whirr past another stretcher, and I think it's holding James. And I wake right back up. 

"Fuck-stop-wait! James!" 

"He's okay, he's got people, calm down," 

"No, please, he's not okay he needs me-"

They place a mask over my face, I try to protest, but I'm in far too much pain to rip the mask off. 

"He needs me." 

The gas pumping through the mask is potent, extremely potent, and it knocks me out quick. 

"He needs me." 

\----------

They knocked me out again, but this time I wake up behind a curtained room. It's still dark outside, that's good, and my arm is heavily bandaged. My other arm has an IV sticking out of it. 

I find the call button and press it a couple times. A nurse pulls back the curtain a couple minutes later. "Are you alright sir?" She asks.

"I'm fine. Tell me where James is. Please."

"I will, sir, but I need to ask you a few questions." 

"Just find out where James is first, and I'll be happy to answer you." 

She looks down at her ugly nurse shoes and says, "Alright. I'll be back in a moment." 

I sit and wipe the sweat off my forehead while she's gone. I'm still in my briefs but my flannel is gone. It's replaced with a hospital gown. Thank god they at least left my dick alone. 

It looks like they've taken the glass out of most of my body, and bandaged up my knees. There's blood leaking through them though. My chest has a huge padded bandage over it, taped to my skin. 

And there's a butterfly bandage on my eyebrow. I guess I got cut open there too. I didn't know that. 

"Alright sir, you're talking about the man you came in with?"

"Yeah."

"He's in surgery right now. He suffered a couple broken ribs and he went into shock after the blood loss, but he's going to be okay."

I don't know whether to breathe a sigh of relief or start crying again. I just stare at her ugly nurse shoes. 

She closes the curtain and pulls a chair from aside. She's got a clipboard and a pen. 

"I just want to run a check to see if you suffered a concussion in the accident."

"Alright." 

"First can you tell me if you have any emergency contact that we should get a hold of?"

Fuck, Kirk!

"Can you...can you give me a phone instead? Please?" 

She nods to the bedside table. 

"Press star 8, and then dial the number."

Fuck, thank god. I pull the phone into my lap and shakily use my good arm to wedge it between my ear and my shoulder. I can't be concussed, I remember the number just fine. 

It takes half a ring for Kirk to pick up. He's freaking the fuck out. "Hello?" He whines. "Kirk, ah fuck.." 

"Jason? What happened?! You and James never showed up and you wouldn't answer! Where are you?"

"Kirk, calm down. Where's Lars?" 

"He's here. He's right here,"

"Alright, listen, both of you. Me and James got hurt." 

"Jason-"

"Listen. We're in the hospital right now. James is in the operating room and they said he'll be okay, you two are my emergency contact..." 

"Jason.." Kirk must be shaking, hard. He's crying into the phone again, but much harder than before. I can hear Lars consoling him in the background. 

"Which hospital?" Lars interjects. 

"Uh.." 

The nurse tells me the name of the hospital to repeat to Lars. 

"We'll be right there. Don't you fucking die on me Jason."

"I'm okay. I'll explain everything when you guys get here."

I put the phone back on the hook and place it on the bedside table. My attention goes to the nurse. 

"Can you tell me their number?" Is her first question. Guess they need it just in case I go crazy. 

"What's your name sir?" 

"Jason. Uh-Jason Newsted."

"Do you know the date?"

"If it's after midnight it's April 18th, 1997."

"Do you know where you are?"

"Los Angeles, California." 

My voice gradually gets quieter and quieter. I remember this questionnaire from wrestling, too. 

"When is your date of birth?" 

"March 4th, 1963." 

"How old are you Jason?"

"I'm 34." 

"How old is James?"

"33." 

She scribbles something down on the paper and turns the page. 

"Do you remember how you got here sir?"

"Ah, well..." I have to choose my next words carefully. I know they're going to find alcohol in mine and James' blood, but I don't want to make that look like we were responsible. That other car hit us. Not the other way around. "Me and James were at his house-"

"James' house?" 

"Yes. And, Kirk and Lars called us, the people I just called, they said there was an emergency so we tried to get down there. Back to the studio." 

"The studio?" 

"Uh-yeah, that's where they were. So we came to a four way intersection, James couldn't see past the car on his left, but that car went and so did we. But it sped up quick and he didn't see the car coming from the left. And it was going really fucking fast--excuse me, I didn't mean to curse--it uh...it hit James' door and knocked our truck on its side."

"The side you were on?" 

"Yeah but James was crushed."

"He survived life threatening injuries in his ribs because of that, we're just glad that his lungs are okay."

I'm quiet for a minute while she writes down my information. I have to answer a few more questions about my health care insurance, and my social security number, shit like that. She asks if I had my ID, I told her it was in my wallet, which was in the truck. 

"Alright, thank you Jason."

Her voice is quiet. 

"You've been through a lot, I'm going to get a doctor, he's going to make sure you're not concussed." 

"Isn't that what you've done?" 

"I just checked for memory loss, there are many variations of brain injuries, we just wanna know you're okay."

When she steps out, a doctor approaches her, and whispers something to her. 

They're at the curtain for a second in silence before turning back to me. 

"Mr. Newsted," the doctor starts, and he sits down in the chair. 

"We've had to put your friend into a medically induced coma."

"What?!" 

"Hold on, there's good reason."

He's an older gentleman, his hair is thin and white and his eyes are heavy. I'd like to conk him in the fucking face. 

"He went into shock, after we brought him back here, and he's going to need a blood transfusion." 

"A-..blood.." 

"Both of you have the same blood type. However. We ran into a bit of a problem when we checked your blood," 

He reminds me of James' dad. 

I almost question what he said until I realize what it means. Our BAC. Fuck, please no. 

"Both of your blood alcohol content levels were more than double the legal limit when we found you. We can't perform a blood transfusion with tainted blood, so we're going to have to talk about it when the alcohol is filtered out."

I cover my face with my good hand. 

"Why were you two driving, son?"

He asks, with what sounds like both genuine concern and genuine shame. 

"There was an emergency.." I mumble, without looking back up. I'm self aware enough to realize that was a stupid fucking decision, but we were worried.

"You..are aware this means we're going to have to get legal systems involved, right?" 

"Yes sir. I am."

"But since you weren't the ones who caused the accident, from what I can tell, we're going to focus on getting you two well again. Look at me, son."

I look up at him and he takes a little flashlight from his pocket. He shines it into my eyes, and I cringe. 

"Sorry," he says as he clicks off the light. "Can you follow this with your eyes for me? Without turning your head."

I sit up a little straighter and watch the flashlight. It hurts, horribly bad, to move my eyes too far. And I let him know that. 

"I don't think you've been concussed. But I do think you suffered a blow to the head, and you're pretty sensitive."

"Yeah." 

"I'm going to go get the papers for the transfusion."

I'm alone again, but not for very long. I was about to start crying again, until I hear shoes squeak across the linoleum floor. 

"Jason!" 

Kirk gasps and runs into my little curtain. He's an absolute fucking mess, and it's broken my heart. 

He almost slips on the floor, but he throws his arms around my chest. He drops to his knees and hides his face against me. 

I hold him back, the best I can, and get an eyeful of Lars. The best word I can use to describe his look is agony. 

Lars looks defeated. And I have no memory of ever seeing that look on his arrogant face before. 

"Hey Newkid," he says, almost a whisper. Kirk is still on his knees up by my bed, with his arms next to my waist. The bed has me propped up enough so that I can play with Kirk's hair without moving too much. 

"Where's James?" Lars asks, with twisted eyebrows. 

Playing with a couple little ringlets, I respond. "He's in surgery still. We have to uh...I have to give him blood."

Kirk's fingers twist into my hospital gown, but he doesn't say anything. He just rests his head on me. 

He's trying not to freak out, I can tell. 

"He lost that much?" 

"It was..bad."

The doctor comes back, notices how busy I am, and leaves the clipboard and pen on my bed for me. 

Lars takes the chair and moves it closer to me, so he can listen. I have to explain again. 

"So what happened, exactly?"

"Alright. Me and James got to an intersection, James didn't see the truck coming from his side and it collided. I woke up in the truck and it was flipped over on my side. James was bloody, fucked up bad, and so was I."

I lift up my cast. 

"They said James has broken ribs and he went into shock. You should've fucking seen the blood.. 

Remember 1992? Remember how his hand was dripping blood? That's what it was like. But coming from his fucking face." 

"You didn't try to stop him?" Lars asks, and his voice sounds like gravel. 

"I did, he didn't stop. You know James."

"Yeah.."

"If he doesn't think of it himself he won't do it." 

Kirk nods against my hand. He's twisting his piercing around in his lip, like he does when he's nervous. I keep telling him to stop that so he doesn't hurt himself but he would never listen.

I lean over to grab the clipboard and Kirk sits up to examine it. 

"For the transfusion. He said we're a match."

Kirk looks up to me, with a tweaky dullness in his eyes. They're wide, and tired. 

"When can we see him?" He asks, with his hand partially covering his mouth. 

I wish I knew the answer to that. 

All I do is rub the back of Kirk's neck and smile. 

"I don't know, kid. Soon enough. He's gonna be alright, hear me?"

He smiles too. I even catch a glimpse of Lars' tiny smile. 

\----------

Kirk sits up on my bed after a while, cross legged. He's got on James' Harvester of Sorrow shirt. Doesn't really keep us out of the spotlight, but eventually that asshole from Headbanger's Ball is gonna find out about this and tell every teenager watching across America that the singer and the bassist from Metallica got in a violent car accident. Hopefully they won't make it sound like it was James' fault. Because it wasn't. I'm not looking forward to having to explain that to someone else. 

Every time Kirk's head sinks, I rub his back until he cheers up again. His mood brightens for minutes at a time, which is more than what I've been able to do. 

At some point, Lars leaves the little seclusion. Probably to go down to the cafeteria. He's not in the best mood, but he probably realizes that we're in this because of him. 

With a hand on Kirk's shoulder, I look up to him and shake him a little. 

"What happened with you and Lars when we didn't show up?"

"Uh.." 

He scratches the back of his neck. 

"I kind of..manned up, I guess. We were fighting over James again. I guess Lars just didn't want to lash out at him so he did it to me. And I told him to get fucked, basically." 

"Look at you!" I coo, poking him in the side. He smiles and pushes my hand away. "Shut up, it's not that big a' deal." 

"Obviously not, right?" I say, lifting up my broken arm for him to see. He's laughing, but wiping his eyes too. 

"Don't cry, little man. You're gonna ruin your macho image."

"Macho, sure."

Lars comes back with a doctor. Our attention is immediately drawn. 

"He's out."

\----------

Kirk is the first to scramble to his feet and follow the doctor. Lars follows him, and I'm left to find my feet and stand. 

That male nurse, Josh, comes by my curtain and helps me with the mobile IV. "He tell you your friend is out?" 

"Yeah, he did. Do you know what happened?" 

He leads me into another ward. My hand starts to shake around the cords of the IV, thinking about what James must look like. When I saw him he was pale and blood soaked. He was dripping and his entire life was being drained from his body. 

I was calm, extremely calm. I didn't want to panic like I should have. I wanted to keep James safe. And it didn't work. 

"It went well. There weren't any complications that I know of."

He opens the door for me, and I see Kirk and Lars already there. Kirk is hiding his face in James' shoulder like he did with me, and Lars is sitting on the couch by the window, covering his face. 

The doctor is leaning against the wall with the clipboard. When he sees me, he urges me to come to him. 

Josh hands him my transfusion papers and leaves again. 

"I think I'm willing to take the risk of the alcohol in your blood to perform this transfusion." My throat starts to hurt when he said that, because both Kirk and Lars look up when he says, "alcohol". No. Stop there. Please. 

"I would rather get his cell count back up with the addition of alcohol than let the low cell count fight with the alcohol in his own blood."

Fuuuuuck. 

Kirk's eyes widen and he turns his head back to James. 

"You fucking promised me you wouldn't drink! You promised me and you didn't fucking follow through and now you're in a FUCKING coma!" Kirk bursts into angry tears, while screaming at an unconscious James. Lars grabs him before I can and keeps him from accidentally hurting James. 

"Kirk, stop,"

Kirk's crying face is killing me. 

"It's my fault. I told him we would get drunk because I thought by tomorrow things would start to look up. I didn't expect this."

"He fucking told you about what I said and you two still drank. I bet he never even tried to stop for me."

I can't say anything. He's pieced everything together. 

Lars is only holding him by his shoulder now. 

Kirk looks back down at James and his breathing is erratic. 

"He wouldn't look like this if he listened to me."

"I'm glad you didn't see him the way I did," 

I make my way to the side of James' bed, and all three of my companions watch me. 

James looks damn near like a corpse. His head is wrapped up, his eyes are sunken in, he's white as a ghost, and he's covered in bruises and scratches. 

"He's clean. And calm, and still. When I woke up in the car he was strapped to his seat and soaking me with his blood. I couldn't see his eyes. He was covered that..completely, with blood. He looked dead, Kirk. 

I just held him up so he wouldn't fall and let him bleed on me."

Everyone is silent after I finish talking. All we can hear is James' heart monitor. 

"Kirk I think we should get back," Lars says, suddenly. It's quiet but startling nonetheless. 

"It's almost two and we've probably got a shit day tomorrow." 

Kirk stands back up, and stares at James for a moment. He looks betrayed. 

"I'm sorry Jason. I can't stay here. I'll be back tomorrow."

"Guys, just wait a second."

Before the doctor leads them away, they turn to me one last time. 

"I'm so fucking sorry." 

Kirk smiles, but it fades quickly, and his eyes tear up. Lars just pinches the bridge of his nose and tells me goodnight. 

I sit on the empty bed next to James. It's much nicer in here than in the open faced curtains. I just sit, and watch James' chest rise and fall. I can't suppress a little chuckle when I see his hickeys blend in with the rest of his little injuries. I bet no one even noticed them. 

Josh swings by the door again, and looks in at us. 

He's just a kid. A kid with curly brown hair and glasses. Can't be older than 21. 

"I can move you in here with him if you want," he says, noticing the bed. 

"Please." 

He almost leaves, but his fingers never let go of the doorframe. He pokes his head back in, and adds,

"My favorite song off Load is Until It Sleeps." 

I shake my head and laugh. That explains a lot. 

Josh comes back with my files on my heart monitor and a couple extra pillows for me to move into James' room. 

"'Tallica fan, I take it."

"I never would have thought I'd have to bring Jason Newsted pillows and pain meds." 

"Don't go telling your friends or anything, please?" 

Josh does seem a little nervous, trying to make sure my needs are met, but I really appreciate what he's doing for me. I thought for sure me and James would be separated, but you can't break up a band like that. 

"I was gonna ask you to sign my old name tag.." he says, plugging my own heart monitor into the wall. 

"I'd love to." 

"I'll stop by and drop it off tomorrow morning, when I have to come wake you up for the transfusion. They want to do it as early as possible so James gets better quicker." 

"They can't do it now?" 

"No. He's hopped up on a ton of different drugs right now. Anesthesia, at first, and then they stuffed him with Novocain to keep him out. They just wanna get everything back to normal." 

I just watch James' chest. 

"Alright, I understand. Thanks Josh. I appreciate it."

"My pleasure." 

He shuts the door for me and leaves me alone. I hope no one else comes in here tonight. I'm exhausted and I want tomorrow to get here as quick as possible. I'd gladly drain myself of every last drop of blood in my body just to get James' eyes open again. 

"Goodnight Het." 

\----------

I woke up to the dim sunlight appearing onto, then disappearing from my face repeatedly. It's too fucking early, good lord...

My pain meds have worn off, and my arm starts to ache. Rubbing my eyes, my vision focuses again and I see Josh. There's him and a few other medical assistants moving something into the room. 

"Morning," he says, doing something to my IV. 

"Shit, do you just work all night?" I ask. Sitting up is fucking hard. 

"My shift ends at 8," 

"What time does it start?"

"8 PM."

Jesus fucking Christ. This kid works twelve hour shifts and he's probably been checking up on me and James all night. I'm amazed, actually. If I could leave him a tip I would. 

"We're gonna do the transfusion in here, we can't really take James anywhere else. Is that alright?"

"Yeah, of course." 

The assistants roll a table between us, it's got a blue container on it and an empty pint bag. The container has the basics, the little needle and the reservoir thing, and the rubber band. Just textbook blood drawing utensils. But one pint? That's it?

"How much are you gonna take?" 

Josh holds up the pint bag. "Just a pint. We don't wanna drain you out too."

"You can take as much as James needs."

Josh smiles a weak little smile while putting on his rubber gloves. 

"We'll ask you again in a little while if he still needs more, 'Kay?" 

"Alright." 

He pulls up a chair and sits at the table, takes my good arm and places it on top. He's trying to keep a conversation with me while he ties the rubber band around my arm. 

"I'm so afraid to fuck this up," 

"I'm sure you'll be fine kid, don't sweat it."

"No it's like..I'm just scared. You guys are on a poster in my dorm. A-and, in a ton of CD booklets in my car. I don't wanna fuck anything up." 

This kid is adorable. He reminds me a lot of Kirk, just his anxious nature. But he's done me right throughout this hell, so I'm not about to tease him. 

"James would love hearing that, man. He would. I'm sure he's grateful for having someone making sure we're taken care of. " 

He presses the needle to my vein and attaches something else to it. 

"Fuck-"

"Shit-I'm sorry-"

"No kid, it's alright. I just don't like needles too much." 

 

Josh leaves me there for a while while the bag slowly fills up. It looks pretty grotesque, actually. The blood filling the tube and then spilling into the bag. The other assistants are attaching another tube to James' IV for whenever they get the bag filled. 

For fuck's sake, I hope he wakes up today. 

"When does James' coma wear off?" I say, not taking my eyes off the tube. 

"That depends. If we get the count back up today, then he'll wake up. But don't try to do it yourself, okay?" 

"Alright."

 

\----------

There's a bag of my blood hanging next to James' IV, and tubes connecting it to his skin. He's been laying there like that since seven this morning, it's almost eleven now. It's been raining all day. I've drowned out the sound of the thunder with the hospital TV. 

I have to scroll by MTV, just for a second to see if we come up at all. 

Thankfully, nothing has reached their ears yet. We're safe for at least a little bit longer. 

I click past the channel and land on the LA news. 

"Here's your weekly forecast, you can see it'll be rainy all week, Thursday through Sunday will be mostly cloudy, with a high of only seventy-eight degrees, low of forty-two, which is really cold for April.."

Great. It's going to rain all week. 

I almost fell out of my fucking bed when I heard a noise that hit me out of nowhere. James moved. 

It was a tiny movement, just his hand falling off of his chest. But my heart lifted right back up, pumping my minuscule amount of blood through my body faster. 

His head turns too. And he's facing me now. 

He must be dreaming. 

I hear a knock on the doorframe and when I look over, Kirk is there, holding a rolled up paper bag. 

"Kirk, is Lars here?" 

"No, he took up the responsibility of letting everyone know what happened."

"Great."

"No-not the media. He was gonna call Deanna and James' stepbrothers. I think Bob too." 

I motion over to the seat by the window and Kirk takes it. He hands me the food he brought and kicks up his legs. 

"No onions?"

"No onions."

"They probably don't want me eating anything that isn't from the cafeteria."

"Fuck that, if I can bring you a double cheeseburger I'm bringing you a double cheeseburger." 

Kirk has a mouthful of fries and there's already salt on his shirt. He's still wearing that Harvester shirt from yesterday, probably because it smells like James. Kirk is like that, he's sentimental, and he's probably losing his mind without him. 

Honestly, so am I. 

"There's literally nothing on TV. I've been flipping between the LA news and MTV since they drained me."

Kirk's eyes flick up to the bag above James' head. "Oh shit, that's a lot-" 

"They're taking more later."

"More?"

"He's...fucked up."

A particularly loud clap of thunder makes Kirk drop a handful of fries. "Jesus fuck!" 

"Jumpy?"

"No shit I'm jumpy..." 

\----------

The day goes by alarmingly quick. Kirk comes and goes, Deanna came by with her kids but left pretty quick..James' stepbrothers never showed, neither did his dad's widow, but..

When Lars and Kirk were both here at once, Francesca came by. That's fucking weird on its own. The fact that Lars called her is weird and the fact that she came by is weird. 

But the worst part, she brought someone else. A guy. 

I had the glimmer of hope that it was a family member until his hand wandered to her waist. 

Kirk looks absolutely disgusted that she would show her face, and Lars looks...

I don't know actually. I can't read that look. 

"Oh, shit.." Francesca leans against the wall and the guy she brought holds her by the shoulder. I've been nothing but pleasant to her for two years, but now? Fuck her. She's going to get the real treatment. She starts to tear up, with her hand against her mouth, looking at James. 

"Oh, fucking can it, Fran." I bark. The guy she's with glares at me, and I glare right back. 

"I can't believe you have the fucking nerve to come in here. You left him what? A fucking week ago? And you've already found someone else?" 

Her voice is curled around tears. 

"Oh..no.." 

Kirk crosses his legs and leans closer to Lars. They're both sitting on that little window seat, watching the ordeal. 

Francesca draws the chair from the table and sits close to my bed. The guy she's with has his hands on the back of the chair. 

Oddly enough, he looks nothing like James. 

"He didn't tell you?" 

"Tell me what?" My voice is hitting the air like an angry, cracking laugh. But I'll be damned if my anger is channeled into tears. 

"I didn't.."

She looks up at the guy. 

"I've been with him for months." 

Alright, now I'm confused. 

"What the fuck are you talking about?" 

"I cheated on James, Jason. I've been cheating on him forever, that's why I fucking-.." she wipes her tears and quiets her voice. "That's why I left him. I figured he would have told you that." 

"What the fuck?" Now my voice is nothing but angry laughter. I look over to Kirk and Lars. Kirk looks dumbfounded, Lars still has that same look. 

He must have found out when he called her, and that's why she's here. 

"James doesn't even fucking know! James has no fucking idea what happened! Jesus Christ!" 

I wish I wasn't laughing, oh my god. 

She's not looking at me anymore. She's crying, looking down at her lap. The guy she's with has his hands on her shoulders. 

"What if James doesn't fucking wake up Francesca?! What if he fucking dies thinking he hurt you?!" 

"He was angry when I told him...and he was screaming so I-"

"Then you're fucking lucky that's all he did! James doesn't fucking know! He thinks it's his fucking fault!"

"Why would he think that?" 

"You ruined his fucking life! Are you fucking crazy? You cheated on him, left him, took his fucking cash, he's been drowning his guilt in alcohol and now fucking look where we are! Take a good, long, fucking look at what you've done." 

My heart monitor is beeping much faster than it should. Lars is holding Kirk back from touching me, which is probably good. 

Francesca is sobbing. 

"Get the FUCK out of my sight and never come back. NEVER come back. Or I'll make you fucking regret it." 

The last sentence is said through my teeth, through hot, angry tears. 

I can't resist the urge to slam the door shut when she leaves, even if it ripped the IV out of my wrist. 

"Jason, calm down man." Kirk whines, still, Lars won't let him touch me. 

"I'm sorry-just..." I wipe the blood from my wrist on the hospital gown and drag the back of my hand over my sweaty forehead. 

"This is fucking horrible." 

 

"Newkid, your IV." Lars points to the floor, where the tube is leaking. 

"Oh shit," 

The door opens behind me, timidly. I half expected to level Francesca's other man but it's only Josh. "I heard the door slam. Is everything okay?" 

He's trying to give us his professional concern, but he looks obviously starstruck, seeing all of us in the room at once. It brightens my mood quite a bit. 

"Yeah, we're...we're okay. Sorry about that." 

"Your IV came out?" 

"Yeah, oops," I crawl back onto the bed and pick up the tube. "Do I need to put it back myself, or...?" 

"No, it's okay. We were gonna let you go today anyway." 

"What?" 

"You didn't have any injuries other than your arm, so we don't have any other reason to keep you here." 

"Fuck..okay.." 

Kirk looks thrilled to have me back, but I can't leave. I have to sit here and wait for James to wake up so I can tell him what happened. 

"What about James?" Lars asks, leaning on his knees. 

"We've got him."

"No-no no no. That's not good enough. No offense." Kirk adds. 

"Josh, kid..you have to let me stay here. Let me keep this room." 

"I don't think I can-" 

"Josh, please. You promised me you wouldn't separate me and James, remember?" 

He looks at his shoes for a moment, and then reaches into his pocket. His old name tag. 

"I'll let you stay here. But you guys have to sign this," he's got a cheesy little grin on his face. 

Lars looks like he's about to groan, but I shoot him a look and he stops. 

"Lemme see your pen, kid."

\----------

My chest keeps tightening with this information I've gotten, I can't help but look to my right and wince. James has to wake up. They said he'd wake up today, they gave him my blood. It's already five p.m. If he doesn't wake up by the time I go to sleep, I'm going to fucking panic. 

Josh brings back my pants, and the shirt I was wearing yesterday. 

"I washed these earlier. The knees on your jeans got torn up, but they're not bloody anymore. Get dressed and I'll take you to get your cast done." 

Oh yeah, the plaster. They haven't done that yet. 

"You gonna have to get somebody to play bass for you like when James' dumb ass kept breaking his wrists?" Lars asks, while I step into the bathroom to dress myself. 

"I fuckin' hope not." 

It feels pretty good to not wear a dress. Getting my wrist through the sleeve was a chore though, and it hurt pretty fucking bad. I'm just gonna ask Josh to beef up my painkiller supply. 

They're probably gonna need to sedate me. I feel better now, sure, but hearing what Francesca said has absolutely shredded me up inside. I just want James to wake up. 

Kirk and Lars stay in my room while I go get my cast done. I wince, looking at my bare wrist when he takes the temporary cast off. It's pale, heavily bruised and there's blue stitches holding my skin together. 

"Gross." 

"Sorry," Josh giggles, placing the padded cast around my wrist. He dampens the plain white plaster and wraps me up. 

"You wanna be the first to sign my cast?" I ask. His eyes seem to light up a little, and he tells me he does. 

 

\----------

It's seven p.m. and James hasn't woken up. Lars obviously let Kirk stay this long in hopes that James would wake, but he's getting antsier and antsier by the second. 

Kirk's sitting on my bed again, with his legs crossed. He's got my cast in his lap and he's scribbling his name under Josh's. The three of us have been watching a movie on the hospital's branch of movies, no clue what it is, there's nothing good on. Lars keeps dozing off, leaning in that sill, his hand pressed into his cheek. Every once in a while I'll have to snap him back awake. 

"Lars! Wake up!" Kirk barks, tossing my sharpie at him. 

"Fuck off Kirk." 

I giggle and pat Kirk's back. 

"You fuck off."

"I think we should both fuck off. James isn't waking up today." 

I was in a pretty good mood until Lars said that. Thanks Lars. 

"You're probably right." Is all Kirk says. He climbs off of my bed and stands by me for a second, holding his knuckles out. 

I knuckle bump him with my cast. 

"Come on." Lars motions for Kirk to follow him out. 

"Night Newkid. Call us if something happens." 

"Alright. Goodnight." 

\----------

Josh comes to greet me again with the same rolling table and pint bag as this morning. "Ah shit, again?" 

"Yeah, sorry. We wanted to give him another pint after this one ran out." 

He takes the empty bag from James' IV stand and places it in the little compartment under his table. "Apparently he lost a lot of blood during the surgery. I thought they were just taking glass out of him and fixing up his ribs. But apparently," he holds out his clipboard and points to some handwriting that I couldn't discern if I tried. "There was something with this lungs, too. I guess the broken ribs ruptured something." 

"The lady said she was relieved to hear there was nothing wrong with his lungs."

"Maybe she didn't know." 

He sits down on the other side of me this time. "I'm gonna take from this arm, is that okay?" 

"Yeah, that's fine."

He pokes the needle into my skin again, and my back aches. I fucking hate needles. More than anything. I was there when my bands were experimenting with injectable drugs, and despite looking like a pussy I was too scared to join in. Simply because of the needles. 

But this is for James. James has a low cell count, whatever the fuck that means, and he needs my blood. 

That's a pretty intimate thing to do if you ask me. 

When Josh comes back, I've almost dozed off, and the bag is on the verge of overflowing. "Oh-shit! I'm so sorry!" He yelps, skidding back into my room and taking the needle out of my skin. He presses a cotton pad to the puncture and tapes it there. 

"Fuck..are you alright? I'm so sorry."

I have to blink a few times and shake myself awake, but yes I'm okay. "I'm alright, it's okay kid." He attaches the bag to James' IV and covers his face in shame. 

"What are the chances that me and James have the same blood type?" I say, watching the blood travel down the tube. "I think it's a sign." 

"A sign of what?" 

Josh smiles as he wheels the table back out of the room. And he completely dodges my fucking question. 

"You're pretty empty right now, Jason. You should get some rest. Goodnight." 

Goodnight, I guess. 

\----------

I press a few buttons on the bed, so that it lays with the smallest incline, and kick off my shoes again. All I do is sit in silence and watch the TV. I'm trying to ignore the fact that I can't close my hand all the way. And I'm blocking out the fact that I haven't showered in two days. I'm not about to ask for a bag to wrap my cast up to do that, either. 

Worst of all I'm trying to blink away the reminder that this is all Francesca's fault and James doesn't know that. 

James doesn't know that he has no reason to hate himself. 

James doesn't fucking know that he's done absolutely nothing wrong. And I know, for a fact, that when he wakes up he's going to blame himself for my injuries. I know he's going to feel like absolute shit. And I'm completely willing to calm him back down, but he has to wake up first. 

As I press the button to shut off the TV and I kick my jeans off, I look at James one last time. 

"Wake up. Please."


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Before I start this, I wanted to give some individual thanks to you guys for reading my story and encouraging me to continue it. Jinsei_Shinu, charasmatichameleon, QuirkHamlet, thank you for being so supportive ^^. So far as this chapter, it is back to normal, and told from James' perspective. I just wanted to clear that up to avoid any confusion. Enjoy!
> 
> P.s., this chapter is pretty short, and unfortunately, Poor Twisted Me is going to be ending soon. However if you want to see it happen, a sequel is in the planning stage at the moment. So just let me know if you'd wanna see a continuation of this story! Thank you guys so much.

Jesus fucking hell, my ribs are killing me. 

I've been kicked before. I've been kicked harder than that. But whatever Dave did to me must have fucked me up bad. It's been a couple days since I saw him, and my ribs never really hurt like this until now. 

My bedsheets seem unusually scratchy, and warm. My back and neck are drenched in sweat. I'm overheating, I feel like I'm going to melt if I keep these sheets on any longer. I tear them off, and my breathing becomes shaky. It's all I can hear. I can hear myself panting and that's it. 

Then beeping. A faint enough beeping that is probably going to drive me to insanity. It's not completely rhythmic, it's in no particular pattern. It seems to be getting gradually faster. 

Is that an alarm clock? 

Am I late for something? 

I think my eyes are open...it's completely dark, though, so I can't be late for anything. The beeping doesn't sound like it's there to wake me up, anyway. I think I woke up because I was overheating. I move my hand up to touch my forehead, but before my hand can touch me, something brushes against my ear. 

"Fuck! What the fuck?!" 

I struggle upward and sit against the bed-frame. It's completely flat, it's not my bed-frame. This isn't my fucking bed. Upon my eyes focusing a little better in the darkness, I see the sheets. They're plain pale blue, and my bed? It's tiny. There are handles on the sides, the floor is white, and smooth. 

There's two tubes in my arm. 

I'm in a fucking hospital. 

My hands start to search my body frantically. There's a bandage around my head, another on my ribs, and I'm covered in little tender bruises. My chest is absolutely killing me. I can hardly breathe. 

But I try to anyway. It hurts, I'm wheezing, and gasping, and choking, I fucking hope I'm not choking on blood. 

My coughing gets louder. It hurts, oh god, it hurts, the left side of my chest is sore and feels gritty. Right under those bandages. 

One particularly loud cough later, and I've gone completely silent. 

"James...?"

My head whips to my left. There's another bed, another figure, and a window. My name came out as an indistinguishable whisper, so I have no idea who it is. 

"What?" 

Oh CHRIST. My voice sounds horrendous. It's broken and raspy. 

"James!" 

The person in the bed almost falls to the floor while throwing themselves toward me. I flinch as they drop to their knees beside my bed and look up at me. 

It's Jason. 

This feels oddly like that dream I had. 

"Jason-what the fuck is going-" 

His face twists painfully and he grabs my hospital gown, pulling me toward him. His hands wrap around me, and his face presses against my chest. His hands are balled up in quivering fists against my back. 

I almost push him off because the force of this hug is torturing my ribs, but I realize how hard he's crying. He's sobbing, vocally. I have never, in the decade that I've known this man, heard him do that. 

"Jason, Jason, stop, come here."

He climbs onto my hospital bed, next to my legs. But he grabs me again and hugs me even tighter than before. This one hurts, physically and emotionally. I hug him back, cautiously. I'm careful not to yank too hard on my IV.

Jason doesn't cry like this. He doesn't weep against the shoulder of another man and expect them to hold him back. So for this to be happening right now, something really fucking traumatic must have happened. 

Great. Things are flying right over my head again. I get the aftermath but none of the preceding events. 

Why is my life getting so fucking unbearable? 

His back is rising and falling under my hands. I'm doing my absolute best to get him to cut it out, but every unsteady breath he takes breaks my heart a little more. 

"Newkid, please..."

His hands drift off of my back and land back in his lap. He has a cast around his wrist and a bandage on his eyebrow. His eyes look sunken in. 

"What the hell is going on..?" 

"You don't remember anything?" He asks. I don't. Not a god damn thing. 

"No. Nothing."

"What's the last thing you remember?" 

"Kirk. I just remember Kirk calling us when we were at my house. Fuck.." I cough into my fist and my ribs ache. Jason holds my shoulder. 

"I'm okay."

Jason reaches over me and presses the button on the side of the bed to bring up the incline. He raises it so that I can talk to him without balancing on my core. 

"Shit-I've told this story to everyone today. I didn't think I'd have to tell it to you," Jason has a smile on his face but the tears shining off of it display an emotion far south of happiness. 

I just look at him and wait for him to continue. 

"We were a-at an intersection, and you were following after the car next to you, but it sped up and we got uh..."

Jason scratches the back of his neck, and his head drops. He's staring at his lap. 

"We got hit. I don't know who hit us but they rolled us over. We were drunk, so.."

Drunk. 

My eyes start to burn. 

"What else..?"

"Ah..aha..I woke up, you didn't. Your staples came out, there was glass in your face, you were-..c-covered...in blood," he's still staring at the cast in his lap. 

"Y-you..you, Jason. What happened to you..?"

My voice wavered on the last word. I swear to god, if I did that to Jason..

"I got thrown against the door, my wrist broke in two places, that's all..I fucked up my knees trying to help you, though.."

"Help me?"

"You were bleeding out. I had to hold you up and get rid of the blood-...I just knelt, and cried on you a-and.." 

He's beginning to sob again. 

I put my hand on the back of his neck and urge him to keep going. 

"I was holding this shirt ag-gainst your face when the medics found us, they pulled you out and I had to fight with them to let me stay with you. My wrist was fucked up, bad, they had to cart me away to fix it and I almost lost my shit away from you.

Kirk and Lars have been in and out of here since I got out of surgery. The doctors said that uh...th-they said you went into shock, so I.."

He points up to my IV bag. The second tube is connected to a pint of blood hanging up there next to it. 

"I gave you like, half my body of blood.." 

"You gave me your blood?"

"I had to..you bled out, James.."

"Why would you do that?"

"What..?"

I draw my hands back and cover my face. 

"I could have fucking killed you and you still helped me?!" 

My voice absolutely cracked in the middle of that sentence. I can feel my eyes welling up with tears. 

"James, no. It's not your fault."

"Drunk, Jason! I got drunk!"

"James-"

"Does Kirk know? Does Kirk know that I broke his fucking promise and landed myself in the fucking hospital almost KILLING my best friend?! Almost killing MYSELF?!"

Jason doesn't try to conceal his sobs anymore. 

He grabs my arm, in between my IV and my blood transfusion tube, and pulls me back to him. His forehead falls against my shoulder. He doesn't let go of my arm. 

"Kirk knows. I didn't tell him, the doctor did. He was.."

Don't tell me. Don't tell me, Jason, please. 

"He's been crying since yesterday. He's broken."

"Fuck-" I growled it through my teeth, my throat burning with tears. 

"Fuck, Jason, I can't do it anymore."

"James stop," Jason's fingers tighten around my arm and his casted arm wraps around my back. I can feel his fingers in my hair for a second until his elbow curls around my head and he does his best to cling to me. 

"No-I can't! Jason let go-stop! Get off of me, Newkid, leave me here to fucking rot-!"

My arm strains and my hand wraps around the blood filled tube connected to me. Jason smacks my hand before I can pull it out of me. I try again, it doesn't work. He just holds my wrist, tightly, away from the tube. 

"Jason, I'm begging you. I can't do this. I can't do this to you anymore." 

"Ja-hames, please, stop.." 

He's crying against me, and his fingers are twisting into my hair. I guess he trusts me not to rip the tube out of my arm now, because he lets go and instead grabs ahold of the gown on my chest. 

"I'm trying, James," he sobs, "I'm trying to help you, please, please let me help you..please.."

"I wish you would have let me die."

"Please!"

"Let me fucking die, Jason!" 

His cries have gotten unbearable. I can't see this from his side. I can't. I've fucking ruined everyone's lives. My existence, my actions, my mistakes, they've completely fucked over everyone I've ever cared about. 

I want them to kill me. 

"I've ruined everything for everyone. I almost killed you. Kirk doesn't trust me, he shouldn't. Lars thinks I'm a fucking joke. I'm an abusive boyfriend. I'm a bullheaded leader. I'm a waste of oxygen. And I want you to let me go."

Jason mumbles something against my collarbone. His grip on my hair loosens, and his hand drops to my shoulders. His other hand falls back into his lap. 

"What?" 

My voice seems unnaturally quiet. 

"I said Francesca cheated on you. You're not an abusive boyfriend." 

"She-...she.."

"She came in today and told me she's been cheating on you. You didn't abuse her. She abused you. She was unreasonable.

None of this is your fault."

I go almost completely limp. 

"I'm not trying to fix you for my own personal gain. I'm not trying to get you better so I can make more money. Neither is Kirk. Neither is Lars, believe it or not." 

I can hardly hear him. 

"I'm fixing you because you're broken and you need to be fixed. I want to see you back on your feet."

Tears roll down my cheek and into my beard, but I'm silent. 

"You're not the monster you think you are, James." 

'I don't have that angelic bassist that Dave has.'

'You missed my smell.'

'God, I miss Jason. But he really doesn't need to know that.'

'Maybe it's not Jason's body you want. Or his face. Maybe it's more than that.'

'I think we could all use a reality check.'

Something clicks in my damaged brain. 

Jason raises his head from my chest and looks up to me. "James?" He says, weakly. 

The tube from my wrist is lying on Jason's shoulder, and my hands, are on his jaw. Without thinking, not fucking thinking at all, I pull him up close against me and press my bandaged up forehead to his. 

"Don't ever let me hurt you again," I murmur. 

"Let me fix you."

"I will..I will."

"Promise me that, Het. Don't you do something fucking stupid."

"I promise, I'm sorry. 

I'm so fucking..

Sorry." 

I would suffer forever to absolve all your pain. 

He gets ever closer and his my nose is against his cheek. 

"Whatever you do, don't say it'll be okay."

"What?" I say, giggling. 

"You fucked me over every time you said that," he says, and I can feel his face refine into a smile. 

Every time his mouth moves around a word, it brushes against mine. 

Come on. Just do it Jason. 

"Just do it, Jason."

"Fine."

He leans just a little closer and we're attached at the lip. Even kissing me, I can feel his face contort in sadness again. 

I think everything that I've been wrung through has led up to this. I'm probably not going to remember this tomorrow. I'm not going to remember holding Jason's face in my hands, my mouth against his, tears soaking both of our faces. I hope I don't remember. 

Not saying that to be cynical. But this feels very spur of the moment. And if whatever the fuck Jason is making me feel is legitimate, I don't want this to be what we remember. 

He pulls away, and hides his eyes in my shoulder again, slouching. 

"You haven't brushed your teeth in like three days." 

It's so good to hear Jason's ridiculous, high pitched laugh again. 

\----------

About a million things could have gone wrong when Francesca left me. I could have been thrust into a depression because she left me, sure. I could have been heartbroken. But I wasn't. I was sad because my life got thrown out of loop, and because I thought it was my fault. I genuinely fucking thought that I was at fault for wrecking my own life. And now I feel absolutely terrible, it feels like some sort of sweet sick poetic justice that nothing was wrong and I tried to fix it anyway. By trying to fix something that wasn't broken, I actually broke it. 

Of course I tried to fix it with alcohol. But that's not entirely my point. 

Alcohol was the reason I fucked it up in the first place. I was drunk when she told me she cheated on me, and now I can actually see that. 

'Smoke the day's last cigarette, remembering what she said...'

Thanks to Jason for showing me what I was missing. I was drunk, she told me she fucked another guy and I probably, rightfully, got fucking angry. I guess she expected me to lay quietly and watch her leave me for another man. But that's not exactly a great way to spend my life, is it? So of course I got fucking angry. Then she hurt me and took my cash, because I got fucking angry?

Are you kidding me? 

My god, that's the most frustrating fucking feeling. 

And then I was too drunk to realize that I'm not the piece of shit here. So I figured I was the piece of shit. And tried to drown myself in booze. Booze landed me here. I'm not drowning myself, I'm holding Jason's head under the water. And he's not thrashing, he's not fighting. He's letting it happen. Which means he's not going to help himself. He's killing himself trying to help me. So this is up to me now. I have to stop using Jason for validation. I called him my best friend and for fuck's sake, I meant it. 

Honestly, just ending it would be much easier than trying to nurse myself back to health. And what the fuck have I got anymore? 

I'm not going to do that. I can't do that to Jason and Kirk. 

Lars either, honestly. Lars seems to care quite a bit about me all of a sudden. 

 

Jason passed out on me. We were laying against the incline of my bed, watching the little TV. I don't blame him for nodding off, TV at two a.m. isn't all that interesting. His head's on my shoulder. And he must've fallen asleep while fidgeting with his cast, because his hands are together in his lap. I grab his arm, trying not to wake him, and examine the cast. 

Kirk's name is scribbled across it, taking up half the cast. Sounds like him. There's another name there, too, Josh. A fan, I can only imagine. I wouldn't have let a fan sign my cast. But Jason and I are very different. 

It takes me muddling through a bit of reluctance to rest my head on top of his. He's gonna have to go back to his own bed before I pass out, though. Because I'll be fucked if someone sees me cuddling up next to Jason like this. But for now I'm okay with it. 

 

Apparently I've been asleep for almost two days, so it's been two days stuck in a coma dream. I don't remember this one as well as the dream I had the other day, but it was a lot less gratifying and more traumatic. 

All I really remember is being trapped, right out of mind of my band. They were there, they were all trapped too, somehow. I could see them all, but they couldn't see me, or hear me. They didn't seem to notice one another. 

I was screaming at them for help, I could feel the veins in my neck straining, but they couldn't hear me. 

Something was constricting me. I could move my hands, but that was it. It felt as though I was trapped in a ribcage, almost. Maybe it was my subconscious telling me that my ribs were broken. Every time I touched my face, my hands would come up smeared in black. 

I guess that was my subconscious telling me my head was damaged. 

Kirk was crucified. The symbolism I can only imagine was because he was doing what he could to save me but my wrongdoing and lack of reasoning hurt him. I sinned and Kirk paid the price. 

Lars was being held back by a pair of arms, he looked bloody, almost. He was distraught but in a way that I can only describe as lust. His shirt was open faced, and there were handprints all over his chest. 

Jason..oh god. 

Jason. 

He was sitting upon a throne, he was shirtless, and he was dirty. He took the cake. 

He was absolutely filthy and his body was covered in whatever the filth was. He was twitchy and erratic, he looked frustrated as all hell. Jason..stop screaming..I can see you, I can hear you Jason, please...

His dirty hands came up to his throat and wrapped around it, while he belted out a gravelly scream. If there was one thing Jason was better at than me, it was making noise. 

But he didn't know that I could hear him loud and clear. 

"Jason! Please! I can hear you! I can hear you!"

\---

Well, fuck. I fell asleep on Jason. I honestly had intentions of making him move, but the next time I opened my eyes, light was shining through the window and early morning music videos were on. 

Shit, my neck hurts. His probably hurts much worse. His head has been lying on my shoulder for how long? 

It's seven, so, five hours. 

I lift my head off of Jason and shake his shoulder. "Wake up, Newkid. Come on." 

He stirs a little and raises his hand to his face to rub his eyes. "No-no..not right now." He never really opens his eyes, he just curls back up against me. 

How precious, he has no idea what the fuck is going on. 

He brings his knees up against the incline and covers his face with his arms, facing me. 

I just ruffle his hair and hug him gently. 

Jesus Christ, I have to piss. So bad. I also smell like shit, and I really want to shower. Can I even shower? That blood bag is empty, so I don't need it anymore, right?

I press the button for nurse assistance and while I wait for said assistance, a weird thought crosses my mind. 

I'm filled up with Jason's blood. His very life force is coursing through my veins right now. The exact same blood cells that are keeping him alive are keeping me alive too. 

"Jason? What-oh my god!" 

A male nurse peeks into the room but quickly cowers behind the door again. 

"You're awake!" 

"That I am." 

He pushes up the brim of his glasses and approaches me with adorable caution. 

"U-uh, what'd you need?" 

I squint at his name tag. It has not only his name, but the signatures of Jason, Kirk, and Lars too. 

"Well, Josh," 

I guess he's the kid that signed Jason's cast. He's probably been kissing our asses since we got in here.

"I'm getting nervous without a shower. Is that something I can do?"

He looks up at the empty blood bag and then back to my bandages. 

"Yeah, but you'd have to wear a shower cap, and we'd need to bandage you back up after."

I mean, I guess. 

"Can I have Jason do that for me?" 

Gay. 

"Y-yeah, if you trust him enough," 

Josh takes a couple bandaids out of his pocket and takes the tube out of my arm. It quickly starts to bleed, but he closes up the wound with the bandaid. Then he takes out the IV and does the same. 

"The man gave me half his blood," I say, hugging him against me again. 

"Of course I trust him." 

\----------

Trying to shower around my stitches was quite a chore and wearing the shower cap reminded me of Kirk, and his curly-ass hair. I always made fun of him for having to wear the stupid thing so he didn't fuck up his curls. I'm trying not to remember the fact that I betrayed him, I just want to get clean and try and face the day the best that I can. The bathroom has little disposable toothbrushes and tiny tubes of toothpaste, and Christ, I've never been so happy to see the tiny plastic things before. 

When I come out of the bathroom finally, I've still got the towel around my waist, and I notice clothes laid out on the chair next to Jason's bed. Jason is still passed out in my bed, though. 

These must have been the clothes I was brought here in, because the jeans are blood stained. They look as though they've been washed, though, which is kind of awesome of that male nurse that's been helping us out. He's a dork. 

Getting dressed, my ribs fucking hurt. You can't fix broken ribs with surgery, that much I know for sure, but there's still stitches on my side. My best guess is that the door must have cut me open, and then crushed my ribs. That's great. Because if they're still broken, then I'm supposed to be bed ridden for a while, even after they let me go home. 

I get everything but my shirt on, and then shake Jason awake. He's still groggy like before, but this time at least he doesn't curl up in my lap and pass out. "Newkid, come on man, I need your help." 

He flips me off and tries to go back to sleep. 

"Do not make me ask the nurse to bandage me." 

"You want me to bandage you?" He says, but, you know, egregiously annunciated. 

"Like that's so strange, after you basically recycled yourself into my veins. You're in my heart. How fucking weird is that?"

Jason sits up and rubs his face. "It's just blood. We give blood all the time." 

"But it's your blood." I explain, emphasizing 'your'. He smiles at me. 

"What's so weird about that?" His smile is an arrogant, expectant one. He's remembering what happened last night, but it's still something I want to forget about. 

I'm gonna do it again, but it'll make up for the last one. It'll be better this time, it'll mean more, hopefully we won't both be crying this time. 

"Shut up Newkid."

 

Jason decided it would be a good idea to wash his hands before touching my raw, partially open wounds. But when he touched my side, I flinched and bared my teeth. His hands are fucking freezing. "D'I hurt you?" He asks as he withdraws his hands as quick as he can. 

"No-your hands are cold."

He laughs and takes the end of the ace bandage. Josh had dropped off a roll out table with the bandages and a couple other things Jason might need for patching me back up. Respecting my privacy, I suppose, and I'm thankful for that. Jason leans against me and curls the bandage around my chest. He has me with my hands on the back of my head. 

"You showered," he notices. I must have smelled pretty terrible last night for him to have noticed, because my hair isn't wet. "I did. You need to shower." 

"But I have this cast."

"You're too afraid to shower with a cast? I had to shower with no fucking skin on my arm."

"You're never gonna let go of that, are you?" 

I put my palm on his face and push him away. When he leans back, the bandage tightens around my chest and I wheeze a little. Jason apologizes and adjusts me so that my arm is down again. 

"I'm gonna wrap this around you shoulder. So you don't like, break." 

The bandage presses my nipple flat and curls around my shoulder, under my armpit and caps off against my upper arm. 

Jason stops moving and his smile lingers, but in such a way that I can tell something has gone wrong since the smile started. He looks back up to me and the smile finally disappears entirely. 

"Can I see your head?" He asks, and his hands are hesitating in my direction. 

I start to unwrap the bandage myself just in case Jason fucks something up. When I get one strip undone, it's coveted in dried blood. Great sign. Jason cringes. 

"...what?"

"Go check it out." 

I step off the bed and get back to the mirror in the little bathroom. I don't even notice my head at first, I just see the overwhelmingly caring job Jason did on my chest. I also realize I need to shave. But then I look at my face and see this horrible purple bruise, even more staples, and tons of butterfly bandaids holding my forehead together. Dear god, I look like I've been through hell. My eyes are almost as sunken in as Jason's and my face has little scratches all over. 

Jason leans against the doorframe and winces. "Jesus Christ," he says. He looks like a lost puppy. I hate seeing his dimples disappear. When he sulks like that they just...stop existing. 

The whole bloody roll is in a wad in my hands now. My hair is sweaty and messy, some of it seems to have darkened in blood. 

"You wanna help me out, Jase?" 

He drops the next roll a couple times and winds it back up while trying to get to me. It's adorable, honestly. But I know he's shaking because of how damaged I look. I don't feel a whole lot better than I look. But I'm trying to stay as sober as possible for whenever I call Lars and Kirk over here. 

God, I miss Kirk. 

Jason climbs up onto the bathroom counter and motions me over. He stand between his knees and let him fix me up. 

There's something about watching his eyes as they scan my head. Just his face. His mouth is parted and his tongue is pressed to the roof of his mouth. I have to look somewhere else before I look like a fag..where to look..his neck is all red, looks like razor burn, no, don't look there either...

"Ow-shit," 

"Fuck I'm sorry-" Jason's hand cups the back of my head and my heart quickens just a little. 

"You just pulled my hair, it's okay-" 

An involuntary smirk cracks across Jason's face as he keeps wrapping my head. 

"What?" 

"You seemed to like your hair pulled whenever Lars throws you around," 

"What the fuck are you talking about?" I question. I know exactly what he's talking about. And I do not think it's very funny. 

Jason tucks the bandage under itself and kicks his legs against the counter. 

"Lars grabbed you by the hair once before you went out on stage and you moaned, you moaned, it was hilarious-!" 

"It was not a moan, Newsted!" 

He throws himself off the counter and grins at me, before spinning on his heel and starting back into the hotel room. 

"James Alan Hetfield, the singer of Metallica-" he yells, I start laughing and grab his collar. "-looooooves having his hair pulled!" 

He crashed back against me, it kind of fucking hurts, but I've got him now. I wrap my arm around his throat. I can feel his dimples again, thank god. The bend of my elbow is pressed up against his chin, and his ear is right by my mouth. 

"If I wasn't so broken," I growl. He starts to scratch at my arm. "I would tackle you to the fuckin' ground." He squirms out of my grip and looks back at me, it seems like he's making sure I'm still joking around. He's got that giant grin. God I love it. And his dumb laugh, I cannot get enough of it. 

 

\--------

The call that Jason started for Kirk and Lars was specifically meant to sound vague. 

"Hey, guys. I just got out of the shower. You coming down today?"

I can't hear who's answering, all I can hear is some static. But Jason keeps giving me signals. "Alright, cool. I think I need you guys today,"

Jason motions for me to get close to him. 

"Alright, get down here as soon as you can, 'kay?" 

"And bring pizza!" I yell, loud enough for both of them on the other line to hear. 

Some scrambling around on the other side and Jason hangs up with a grin. 

 

\----------

I hear a familiar squeak of Kirk's boots on the linoleum floor and he squeezed through the door as quickly as he can. I don't even have time to say hello before he climbs onto my bed with me and pulls me close. 

"Hey, Kirk," I say, but it's into his shoulder. He's gripping my shirt and his hands are shaking with the force of his grip. He's sitting on my lap, it feels like he's going to cry..

"Fuck you James! Fuck you-..fuck you.."

My heart has completely shattered. 

I look over and see Lars and Jason together, he's carrying a box of pizza. As he hands it to Jason he starts to reach toward Kirk but Jason grabs the hem of his shirt. 

Kirk is starting to crush my ribs with his weight, minuscule as it might be. He's crying hard and cursing my name. 

I do my best to comfort him but he doesn't seem the least bit comforted. 

"Fuck you-..." he mumbles, and he finally calms down a bit. His body relaxes against mine and his hands let go of my shirt. 

Fuck me, I agree. 

"Kirk..I'm so fucking sorry." 

"You need help, James." 

His piercing digs into my collarbone. 

"I know, I know, I-"

"Hey James," Lars leans up against the wall that my bed relies on. Both me and Kirk look up to him. 

"I'm sorry Lars. I am. I'm gonna-...I'm gonna get back on track for you guys. I can promise you that. If I break that promise you have permission to put me right back here." 

Kirk rubs his head against my neck and curls up to me. 

Jason has a pained look in his eye. Kirk does this to us a lot. He's affectionate and he's not afraid to let that be known. But this feels a lot different. He's betrayed but he's attached to me, he can't seem to let go. I don't want him to. 

I know I begged Jason to let go of me yesterday, I begged him to let go, but I don't want it anymore. I want them to hold on. I want them all to hold on. I don't want to be dropped again...don't drop me again, don't drop me again! Please. I'll do anything for another chance. 

"I'll do anything for another chance."

"If anything, James, I think you need to see somebody," Lars grumbles. 

"I do. You're right." 

Kirk sits up and straightens himself out. 

"It's good to see you James," he says, and he nods, but the depressed luster in his eyes is something I can't look away from.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a chunk of what was supposed to be the 'last chapter'. I figured what I was writing was dragging on quite a bit, so I could give you this to hold you over until I get an ending situated. On another note, the support and demand for this story has been absolutely overwhelming, and I can't thank you guys enough for encouraging me to finish it. I hope you enjoy.

Kirk is wearing one of my shirts from the Damaged Justice tour. I haven't been able to look away from him, he's just wiping pizza grease onto his jeans and hoping no one notices. He keeps picking off toppings and handing them over to me, and he doesn't even eat the crust. He forks those over to me, too. 

I can't believe I could have left him behind. He's a kid, he's our brother, and self centered as it may seem, he doesn't have much of a life without us. I fear that he never would come out of hiding again if something were to happen to us. Something worse. All I can think about is how he brought me pizza when I got out of the hospital, and how he's done the same thing, but now the situation has gotten worse. All I can think about, is my own tombstone, and Kirk sitting against it, picking the toppings off of his pizza and having no one to give them to. 

I know, it's a bit of a weird thought. But I think it's enough to steer me in the right direction. The pizza is some sort of dumb symbol of Kirk and I. 

On the face of Lars is genuine guilt. I don't believe I've ever seen Lars guilty before. He knows he's always right, even if he's not. And now he can finally fucking see that he was wrong about my addiction I let him think it, too. I let him see my shell but not what was underneath. I can't look like a pussy in front of Lars. That isn't what Metallica is. Me and Lars are supposed to be a team, and for some years now, we've gotten quite distant. I can't help but assume that from here on out, Lars is gonna be on my side. 

If I were to die, it would, no doubt, be the end of Metallica. That would be it. Our legacy would end on the worst possible note. It would come out of a bad place of addiction and depression and confusion and frustration, and that's not what I want people to remember us for. We're a family. 

I've taken up a job as leader and I intend to be the leader. 

 

\----------

The social worker hands me a handful of folded up brochures and leans back in his chair. The doctor next to him clears his throat. 

"Hear me out, Mr. Hetfield."

Mr. Hetfield. 

"This accident is taking a pretty hefty dent out of your health insurance fund, and while it wasn't your fault, you were still driving drunk."

'Alcoholics Anonymous: A 12 Step Program on the Road to Recovery'.

"It is out of my power to overlook the decisions you make, but..."

'San Rafael Addiction Rehabilitation Center'. 

"I would honestly advise you to take this as an opportunity to better yourself. 

It's a miracle that you both survived, and I don't want you to take this second chance you've been given for granted."

Oh believe me, buddy. I've gotten far more chances than I deserve. 

"What am I supposed to do?" I ask. My voice is almost as hollow as my chest. 

"Well," he straightens in his seat and closes his hands together on his desk. 

"The accident was a hit and run. So even if we knew who the person was, we can't do anything about it by now. Here's what I know." The doctor opens a yellow envelope with a stack of legal documents inside, and lays them flat on the desk for me to see. 

"By a look-over of your files, your insurance company has contacted the justice system out of fear of what might happen to you, and.." 

The social worker places the pads of his fingers on the document, interrupting the doctor. "And you've been charged with a misdemeanor." 

"What?"

"It's not, exactly a felony, sir. You're not a convicted felon in our eyes. But what you've done still puts you and others in danger."

I fucking know, thank you. I shift in my seat and twiddle my thumbs together. 

"You still haven't told me what the fuck I'm supposed to do."

"W-Well, first we need to explain to you what we're doing, and I'll give you options to go about our offers," the doctor says. His nervous eyes keep darting toward the social worker, like he's expecting him to take the job of talking. 

"Right. Since you've been charged with a misdemeanor, we are going to let you stay out of a courtroom. No further examination can be held of this case so, here is what we're going to do."

He moves once document out from another. 

'FAQ About In-Vehicle Breathalyzer'.

"We are going to have you install a breathalyzer in your car to avoid any other accidents like this. We can only provide you with one, so you cannot drive a vehicle other than the one your breathalyzer is in."

Jesus fucking Christ. How is this going to fucking fix anything? All you're doing is pissing me off, doc. 

I do nothing but stare at the papers and swallow the lump in my throat. 

"Besides that, we think that rehab, not prison, is the best place for you." 

"...rehab?"

"Yes, sir. We can contact a facility for a consultation tod-"

"Fucking rehab?!" 

I grip the edges of my seat to keep from reaching across the desk and strangling that fucking doctor. You cannot send me to rehab. I've made this very fucking clear! I have a fucking album to finish and a tour to start! Rehab is the absolute last fucking thing that I need and you're trying to run me through it?! 

"Sir, please-"

"You can't fucking cart me off to rehab. You fucking can't. I'm not your fucking pawn! You can't keep me out of my cars and you can't fucking lock me in a correctional center. I'm not gonna sit here and let you tell me what's fucking best for me, thanks but no thanks, Doc."

I toss myself out of the seat and throw it to the side while I start for the door. But the second I grip the doorknob, the doctor says, "You almost killed your friend."

I immediately freeze. 

"You both could have died. And I have a feeling, that if he had died in that car accident, you would be wishing that you'd done something to stop yourself. Don't you see that what you do is hurting more than just you?" 

I drop my forehead against the door and bring my fist up against it. 

I did promise them I would try this time. I can't hurt them anymore. 

Maybe it would hurt less watching me leave to get help than to never get help at all. 

"I'm sorry James. But this is your only option."

"Yeah, I know."

I hear the doctor and the social worker start to shuffle behind me and I turn around to see what they're doing. They put all the papers back into the yellow envelope and stand to leave, not without handing it to me. 

"We'll give you some time to talk to your friends and I'll go call the facility."

I don't respond. I just lean up to the doorframe while I think about what the hell I'm supposed to tell them. 

 

I'm supposed to go home today, apparently. That Josh kid told me so, immediately after asking me to sign his name tag. I did, but I don't particularly like the situation. 

Before I got back to my band I made him an offer. 

"I tell you what, kid. Since you've done so much for us," 

I took off my choker and placed it into the palm of his hand. He looked at me with the biggest eyes I've ever seen. 

"What? No-no no no, I can't take this." 

"Yes you can, and you will. I can't promise I'm gonna be back here, and I want you to remember us bye. Thanks for taking care of us, kid." 

He smiled at me and gripped his new necklace. I smiled back and dismissed him as I walked back into my room. 

Jason looks distraught again. The lines in his face are gone. 

"What did they say?" Kirk asks, and scoots closer to the edge of the bed. I lean against the doorframe and try to find good words. 

"They uh..said we can bounce today. I think we should get out of here as soon as they talk to me again."

"When's that gonna be, James?" Lars asks. 

I just shake my head at the ground. "I don't know. I'll...

I promise I'll tell you guys everything when we get back to the studio. I don't want anyone to hear me."

Kirk swallows his bad feeling and twists his piercing. I hate when he does that, it makes me nervous. I almost ripped my nose piercing out once and that's why I stopped wearing it. I would be pissed if Kirk fucked up his lip. 

Jason's sitting on the bed against the backboard and Kirk is leaning on Jason's knees. It looks uncomfortable as all hell, but it's adorable, if I'm honest. Lars is sitting in the window sill alone and I feel horrible seeing him like that. 

Seeing him alone just reminds me of where I'm going. Lars is absolutely nothing without me. He has Kirk and Jason, of course, but it's been just the two of us for over fifteen years, and no matter how much he pushes me away he's always gonna be my other half. 

I sit up against him in the window sill and give him a toothy grin. He looks at me, and returns the grin for a moment, but it fades away and his head drops. I grab him by the shoulder and pull him. "It's alright, Lars. Lookit me."

He finally looks at me and his eyes have glazed over. It hurts me deep down in my fucking soul to see him that sad. 

I don't have much else to say. I just take his head in my hands and put my own head against his. I ruffle his hair a little too, and he giggles. He seems a bit annoyed but I'd much rather have him irritable than depressed. 

 

"James, can I see you for a second?"

The doctor pulls me out of the room and hands me the rest of the papers. "I made an appointment for you at the San Rafael Correctional Center, it's for tomorrow at ten-"

"Tomorrow? You're giving me one fucking day?" 

"Listen, wait. Your appointment is only a consultation. It's..worse, than you think. I suppose. If they agree that you need the help I've suggested, they're moving you to the Addiction Recovery Center in Long Beach."

"Long Fucking Beach? That's seven hours from here doc, easy."

"Please Mr. Hetfield. Without getting the help you need and deserve, things are only going to get worse."

"You can't pull me that far away from them. You can't fucking do that." 

"James, please. Get the help you need and come back to them. If you think they don't want to see you get better, then you're being ridiculous."

I kick at the ground and put my hands on my head as I look away. 

"Look James, you are a self punisher. I know what you're feeling. And I know that we can't help you here. Please go to that appointment, for the sake of your band." 

He puts one of his wrinkly hands on my shoulder and I cringe. "You're free to go. We've signed you out."

As I walk back into the room again I plan out my last night. I'm gonna have to sit and talk to my band. I know, for a fact, that the second the people at the consultation see what I've done to myself they're going to take me in. I'm probably going to be driving all night to Long Beach and get to my new home first thing in the morning. I guess that's okay, I'm totally fine with driving somewhere I don't want to be. 

"Can we go now?" Lars asks, his voice is thick as mud and filled to the brim with impatience. He hates hospitals, I feel guilty for making him stay here for so long. I turn to Kirk and Jason and Kirk just nods. He doesn't look impatient, but I can tell he's desperate to have me to himself again. 

Fuck, I'm going to hurt him so bad. 

I nod and motion for them to get up. Kirk's face lights up a little. That just hurts worse. I want to stay with him. I want this nightmare to be over so I can be there for my band again like I used to be. But I know they're not used to abstaining from alcohol, and I know the second I see them drinking I'm going to join in. 

And I can't do that anymore, can I?

We try to look as normal as possible getting out of the hospital. It's weird seeing a whole band in there, it must be. But thankfully we get out in peace and we're back at Lars' car. 

I hate being in the passenger's seat of Lars' car, the way he drives always makes me nervous. He drives too slow, and he turns on red lights, which is something that I absolutely cannot stand. But here I am, sitting with him, staring at my lap. Because the mixture of the radio, my band's voices, and the whirring lights outside is making my head hurt. I wish I didn't have to wear this bandage, I'd rather have my staples back out in the open, even if they've multiplied. But I'm gonna keep them on until I leave tomorrow. 

Jason laughs in the backseat, and I crane my neck to look back. Him and Kirk are leaning against each other, they look like they were fighting for a spot, and they're smiling. 

Jason directs his smile to me, and my face can't help but split into a grin itself. 

"Back to the studio Het?" Lars asks, as his hand hovers over the turn signal. "Yeah,"

"..take me home, Lars."

It's only been a couple days since I've been here, but the smell of the studio nearly knocks me flat on my ass. I want to move in here like I said I would and I know for a fact that's exactly what Kirk is expecting me to do. I don't want to tell him. 

I don't want to go. 

I don't want to leave Jason. If it didn't make me feel horrible guilt, I would suggest that he'd come with me. He doesn't need the help like I do, but I need him. 

Kirk needs me, and I need Jason. 

I don't want to be alone. 

I can feel my nose start to burn while Kirk leads me into the living area. He's got a grip on my arm that he doesn't want to loosen. But I let him drag me along and I sink into the couch with him. 

"You're NOT going home tonight, you know that right?"

"I'm not going anywhere tonight. I'm staying right here, I promise."

Kirk's nerves ease a bit. He calls over Lars and Jason, Jason sits next to me, Lars sits next to Kirk. 

Then we're all on the couch with our legs up on the coffee table, watching TV, like usual. I need this right now. Just us, just us and our TV, we'll be okay for tonight. 

Jason seems to sink against me, and his leg crosses mine on the coffee table. 

I don't look at him though, I feel like if I look at him he would shrink back into the armrest. So I let him fall into me, I let his hip touch mine and I let his foot rest on the other side of mine. 

"You got any meds Het? I think you're gonna need 'em, your head's fucked." Lars leans over Kirk's lap to see me. 

"They gave me a prescription." I say, simply. It's in that huge yellow envelope. There's also legal documents in there, and before I go anywhere tomorrow I have to have someone drive me to their office to get a fucking in-vehicle breathalyzer. 

Tomorrow. Tomorrow. 

Live for today. Enjoy what you have, James. You only get one night of freedom. 

Jason turns his head to me, but I don't turn mine fully, only enough to tell him I'm attentive. 

"You want me to get it?" He asks, quietly, as if not to let Lars hear. His breath is warm against my neck and something about it makes my guilt heavier. "Yeah, I do. I can't..get it, right now. I don't have my cars or anything." They'll send me my shit from the crash, right? All that was in there were my cassettes and registration, but I'm sure there was some more shit that I'm forgetting about. I'm going to miss that truck. But I've got other cars. 

"I can get it now, if you want." 

My head isn't killing me as much as it was this morning, but I know if I let it fester it'll get worse. 

"Yeah, if you can."

Jason uses my knee to help himself back to his feet and my blood starts to heat, just a little. Kirk and Lars both watch him leave until looking is too much work, and go back to the TV. 

"My prescription is in that envelope," I yell back and wait for the rustle of the papers. 

'...police are on the lookout for the suspect of a hit and run car accident in eastern San Rafael; they are said to be driving a red Chevrolet pick-up truck...'

"James...?"

The TV continues to remind me where I am while Jason calls out to me. 

'...if you have any information on who may have caused this accident, please call...'

"...what's this?" 

I turn around to see Jason holding the paper with chicken-scratch doctor's handwriting, the very top has a bold logo of the Long Beach Addiction Recovery Center or whatever the fuck...

Kirk's nails dig into the back of the couch and my heart drops to my stomach. 

"Jas-"

"You're leaving us? Again?"

"Jason I have to-"

He comes back, in heavy footed stomps, and throws the whole envelope into my lap. Then he doesn't sit next to me, he sits in the recliner and leans toward me. 

"When the fuck were you gonna tell us you were going to rehab?!"

"I was-"

Kirk kicks the fucking coffee table away from him and throws himself off the couch. I watch, in horror, while he runs his palms over his eyes and turns away from me. Lars? He stays completely fucking still. 

"Open the fucking envelope and tell me what's in it." Jason orders. His hands are shaking in his cast. 

I do as I was told, and everyone but Kirk watches me. He's holding his hair against his head and staring at the ceiling. 

"...it's the only fucking way they're willing to fix me, Jason," 

"You broke.. ANOTHER..fucking promise to me, James." Kirk shouts it at the ceiling and his hands slip onto the back of his neck. He finally spins on his heel and looks at me with tears in his eyes. "You fucking broke it AGAIN." 

I cannot bring myself to say anything. 

"Again!" He yells, and falls onto the table, he grips the edge and directs his gaze at me. 

"What the FUCK, James?! Why the fuck won't you fucking listen to me?! Why?!" 

I swallow hard and stare at my shoes. I wanted them to accept me back and love me before I left them. This isn't what I wanted. 

Jason is staring up at Lars, with a pained look in his eye, but suddenly his whole face drops and Jason squirms in his chair. 

"You-...you fucking told them! You told them to send him, didn't you?" 

Lars covers his mouth with his fist and stares at the table. 

My soul, it's shattering. I'm being rocked to my very fucking core. I guess I was wrong. Lars just wants me gone. He probably did this with zero intention of seeing me better. 

"Why?" Kirk whines, and looks to Lars. 

Just one little syllable and Lars' jaw clenches. 

"James is broken," is what he manages to let through. 

He's certainly not wrong, but he basically turned me in. I wonder what else he told them about me. 

"We need him, Lars! We fucking need him! You can't send him away!"

"..how long..?" 

Jason looks at me and his voice is weighed down in sadness. 

"I...I don't know. I have to ask them tomorrow.." 

Jason grips the paper and turns it so that he can read it. 

"Tomorrow morning. You're leaving tomorrow morning..?"

"Yes, I am. I'm sorry."

"Sorry," Jason repeats, laughing, and he shakes his head. "Tomorrow!" He yells through his teeth. 

"Jason, please-just.." 

He throws the paper back into my lap and covers his face. "I just got you back, James.." 

He's quiet again. Lars hasn't moved, he's just staring at his socks on the coffee table, and Kirk is wiping his face. 

"I can't hurt you Jason. Not again. And we both fucking know that I'm gonna hurt you if I don't go."

I want to wring Lars by his neck, I want to shatter the TV, I want to break my own wrist to make me and Jason even. But I can't. Anger boils within me but I won't acknowledge it any further. 

"You're gonna call us, right?" 

Kirk asks, but he's not looking at me. His eyes are on the glass on the table that he knocked over, and he's twisting his piercing. "Yes, Kirk. I'm-...I'm not leaving forever, you know that. I'm just gonna.."

Jason's back is rising unsteadily. 

"Can we just..forget about this, for now? I don't want to think about it." 

Lars still hasn't moved much more. He's covering his eyes rather than his mouth now, though. 

Kirk digs around in his pockets for a minute, and pulls out a lighter, then he disappears into the kitchen for a second. When he comes back, he has four cigars in one tiny hand. 

Light my cigar and take away my pain, do it while you can, keep me sane, before I hit the road. 

"If this is your last night with us," Kirk mumbles, handing us each a cigar, "then I don't want to make it shitty."

"You don't have to-"

"Yes, I do."

Lars takes his cigar and hangs it between his lips. He looks guilty but I know it's not genuine. He wants me gone. I don't know how I could feel any different. 

"I'm not trying to get rid of you James."

Bull. Fucking. Shit. 

"Yeah."

"I'm serious," Kirk places the flame at the tip of Lars' cigar and he leans closer to light it. 

Kirk knows he doesn't have to light them for us, he just seems to enjoy it. 

"I'm really sorry. But it's what you fuckin' need right now. I can't have you fuckin' around and killing yourself."

"I know." 

Kirk touches my chin, by accident, while lightning mine. 

The smoke is musky and earthy, just the way I like it. 

I watch as Jason's cigar is lit. He takes Kirk's little wrists in his hands while he does it, and for whatever reason, it...

It bothers me. 

 

Jason never moves back to the spot on the couch. He puts out the end of his cigar in Kirk's ashtray and keeps staring at the ground. His paw is over his muzzle and I hate seeing him so hurt. I wish he would stop, I don't fucking want to remember him sad while I'm all on my own. I don't have anyone, no one at all, but my band now. God only knows how long I'll be there, god only knows what they're going to force down my throat. God only fucking knows what I'll be like when I'm pushed through the other side. Please, Jason. Give me something to remember. 

Kirk is too good to ask for more. He's an angel, in my eyes, he can do no wrong, and I'm perfectly fine remembering him like this, with his cigar between his thumb and index finger. Plumes of smoke fold out of his mouth. His nails are covered in chipped off black nail polish, and they're bitten down to the skin. He's photogenic and picturesque. I know that this view of his profile will be what I remember in rehab. 

Lars? I don't want to think about him. I have plenty of time to wait until my anger fizzles away. But right now, Lars is the cause of all of this. He wants me to leave and for fuck's sake, he's going to get what he wants. 

I have to make a memory with Jason. I need to remember him in a good light so I know that I have something to come back to when I get out. 

I need him to be the reason I get better. I want that. But he has to want it too. 

The sun goes down and the only two that haven't moved from the couch are Jason and I. I can see Lars and Kirk moving in fast motion from the kitchen, to the living room, to the studio, to the phone, to the back room. All while Jason and I stare at the TV. I only catch back up with time when Kirk is practically in my lap and Lars leans against the door frame of the back room. He nods over to Kirk, and Kirk looks up at me. 

"That's my cue," is all he says as he hugs me and rises to his feet. 

"Wake me up if I don't wake up before you, okay?" 

"Alright. Night."

He calls goodnight back to me and disappears with Lars. They do that a lot, I guess Lars was sick of me. 

But now it's just me and Jason. 

He completely ignores my existence and curls his knees closer to his chest. 

"Jason."

Ignored. 

"Please."

He turns his head but his body language tells me he's not listening. 

"I need you to cheer up for me. I'll even do that shit-I'll call you every day if you want me to. I might go crazy if I don't."

Please smile. Please. 

Jason cracks a tiny, tiny smile. 

Mend my heart, Newkid. 

"Then that's what I'll be expecting."

"Are you more mad at Lars than you are at me?" I ask. I relax my face as much as I can and try to get him to look me in the eye. 

He scans my face, but his gaze only crosses mine once. I can barely see him, it's dark as hell, but he has a specific glimmer in his eyes. 

"Yeah. I am. He threw you under the bus."

"He did but it's..it's better this way, Newkid."

"Don't fuck yourself up."

"That's not my intention. But I'm gonna go crazy without you guys."

"Then I'll come visit you."

I can't help but notice Jason said 'I' and not 'we'. 

"You'd be there for me even if I'm all drugged out and twitchy?" 

"Fuck yeah, Het. It'll be just like old times," he jokes. I see that smile. 

Jason's face lit up by the TV and the shadows of his dimples exaggerated, his eyes nearly shut with those smile lines, his hair all messy and fluffy from hospital shampoo. 

That's how I'm gonna remember him. Exactly like that. 

"You weren't there for the painkillers, those didn't mix well with vodka but I tried anyway."

"I know it doesn't. Painkillers don't mix with anything."

"I puked on Kirk once-" I start, and Jason's laugh breaks up my story. 

"You did not."

"I did, it was right after a show-..and I blew chunks all over his Earth A.D. shirt. He was probably pissed, but I was so fucked up that all I remember is the puke."

"Fuckin' gnarly," Jason laughs and straightens in his seat. He's leaning close to me again. 

He keeps scanning over my face while his smile slowly slips. 

"What?" I ask. 

"Your bandage. Take it off."

"Why?"

"Just take it off."

I start to unwrap the bandage from around my head, and I'm thrilled to see no blood stains. I start to struggle with a stray thread sticking to my staple, and Jason leans up to help me adjust it. He puts one hand on my jaw and curls the thread around his finger to pull it away. It's the most refreshing thing ever taking that bandage off, but an even better feeling comes from Jason's fingers on my skin. He's not mad at me. He's not mad. 

Before I get too used to the eye contact, Jason lets go and stands up. "Come here." 

He starts toward the studio. 

"Why?" I wonder, but I follow him anyway. 

He starts to speed up, like he's making me chase him into the studio like a kid. I turn on a light at one end of the hallway and he turns it right back off at the other end. 

"Jason, what the hell are you doing?" I ask, choked up by a laugh, but I keep following him. Why are we going into the studio at eleven at night? 

Jason kicks open the glass door of the studio, while vaguely explaining himself. 

"I'm not gonna let you disappear all pissed off and tweaky," he says. When I get into the studio too it's pitch black, so I turn the light on, right as the door shuts. 

But just as quickly as the light came on, Jason's hand lands on the wall behind me, and the light is off again. 

Then I feel his hand grip the shirt on my chest and he yanks me against him, his mouth attaches to mine and his nose presses up against my cheek. 

Oh god, dear god, this is better. 

This is what I wanted. I wanted to fix it, the kiss from last night, it needed a bit of a touch up. Thank god. 

I tear at Jason by the shirt and snake my arm up against the back of his neck. I feel almost powerless, while Jason pushes me up against the wall and nibbles my lip, but at this point I would let him do anything he wanted. 

I guess that dream I had and what I did last night weren't just thrown out by my drugged out mind.

I nearly slip under Jason's weight, but he's there to grab hold of me, even if his wrist is trapped between my neck and the wall. What he can do, is twist his fingers into my hair keep me in his spot. 

He pulls away for a second to breathe and his forehead pressed to mine. I can't breathe, at least I can't focus on it. He mumbles against me with the same deep voice as on stage. "You're not gonna leave me alone, not like that." His mouth drags along my jaw for a moment until it reaches my neck and kisses, hard. I groan and turn my head up to the side. 

"Ahhh-of course not Newkid-," 

He moves both of his hands to my shoulders and keeps me where he wants me. I don't protest, I just gasp and hold Jason's shirt. 

He kisses over one of the preexisting hickeys, and I squirm. I would have much rather had Jason leave those there, rather than Dave, maybe since they're already there, he could leave a few more...?

I feel his tongue press against my skin, but he stops and comes back up to my face. 

He moves it up with his nose and presses both thin lips to my lower lip. 

"Go ahead," I murmur. 

His breathing picks up and he goes back to my neck, without any hesitation this time, and he sucks on a bare spot of my neck. 

I groan and my head hits the wall behind me. I can't move beyond that, my legs try but if I move an inch I'll fall flat on my ass. 

"Hh, Jason-..."

"Just something to remember me bye.."

Stop reminding me that we're gonna be apart soon. Just..do everything you can to claim me. 

I hope I run into Dave soon, hickeys and all, I want him to see. 

Actually, fuck Dave. 

Jason. 

Jaaaason. 

"Then mark me up."

He kicks my foot apart from my other foot, I slip, dragging him down the wall with me. Then I'm sitting against the wall with Jason straddling my lap, he's still marking me up the best he can and holding my shirt. 

I decide he's had enough when he has to gasp for air again, and I yank him by the hair to get back to his mouth. 

He mumbles something against my mouth, but it's not enough to make me pull away. I just hold him against me and take shallow inhales until my heart beats alarmingly fast, warning to me to breathe. 

He just settles against me and his breath hits my skin. 

"You're taking me with you. At least a little bit of me."

"I've got you on my neck," I whisper, trying to get back to kissing him, but he doesn't give me any more. 

"And on your dick," he tries to shuffle off of me but I drag him back down and we both give off a grunt. 

"Not now-" he breathes. He drops his head to my shoulder and sinks into me. Then he's just got his arms around my neck. 

"Stay with me on the couch."

"But Kirk an-"

"They won't care. It's okay."

He tries to get up again but this time I let him, and he holds out his healthy arm to help me back up. 

When we're upright again, I remember that I'm bigger than him, and I totally just became putty in his hands. 

The way he smiles at me as the cheap couch swallows him is motivation enough for me to get out of rehab alive.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OHHHKAY GUYS. HERE WE GO. This is the final chapter of Poor Twisted Me. This is a project I've been working at for months and I am extremely glad to finally see it finished. I'm not a big fan of this chapter, I think it's a little scattered, but it is the ending I've been wanting for this particular story. On another note, I am going to be writing a sequel to this. I'm in the planning stages now, and I expect to post the first chapter before this summer. Sorry if that's a long time to wait...but, there is some good news (I hope). Between the post of this and the sequel, I have TONS of ideas for oneshots for many different things. Thank you guys for sticking with me through this story. If I ever take too long to update something, always feel free to PM or email me to complain. Or even if you want to just talk or ask for ideas or something, I have your back!
> 
> Enjoy,
> 
> ~Sadie Jade

Poor Twisted Me- Chapter 8

I don't have much recollection of what happened after that, what I do know, though, is that I woke up shirtless on the studio's couch. It's not bright outside, it can't be past six a.m., so I'm okay on time. But I'm lying here alone, Jason isn't even in the studio. His shirt is here though, his shirt is in my lap, right on top of mine. I just sit up carefully and rub my eyes for a while trying to remember what happened. It's still dark down here, I can't see my own feet at the edge of the couch, but of course I can see Jason as he comes back. 

"Morning," is all he says, with a cup of coffee in his hands, and his glasses on. His hair is wet and he's wearing new clothes. 

"Why are you up so early?" I grouse. 

"I needed to be up to get you ready. We need to find you something dignified to uh...compensate." He grins around a sip he takes. 

"For what?" 

He nods to my torso, and turns on the light. It takes me a good thirty seconds of wincing before I can see my own flesh. 

Purple, red and yellow marks decorate everything from my collarbone to my nipple. 

"Oh, fuck me."

Jason chuckles and sets his coffee on the desk. 

"Your neck is covered up pretty good, but I tried to get it below collar area."

"What a sweetheart."

"And you loved every second of it." 

He sits in the rolling chair and pulls his mug back up to his lips. 

"...what car are you taking?" 

"I don't know. I don't want to go back to my house."

"Take my truck."

"What?" 

I can't take his truck. I have to install a breathalyzer...

"You heard me, dumbass. Take my truck. I have other shit I can drive."

"Jason, I can't drive without installing a breathalyzer. I'm not setting one of those up in your truck."

"I don't care, you're taking the truck, that's all there is to it." 

I'm shocked to not hear Jason bitch about the breathalyzer. I must be a pretty damn good kisser, ah?

"Then I'm taking it to Long Beach."

"Long Beach, that's far, shit. Speaking of which, we need to clear out your drawers and pack you with some shit." 

"We didn't bring very many outfits the last time we were at my house."

"Then you can take some of my clothes. I just don't want you to go back to your house, I have a bad feeling about it."

"About my house?"

"I just thought there might be like...paparazzi, or something. People are gonna find out sooner or later what happened and I don't want someone taking pictures of you without your word."

I smirk toward my lap and sit in the couch normally, stretching along the back. "You claimed me and you don't want anyone to know, is that right?" 

Jason hides in his mug. 

"No offense, but I don't really remember what happened last night. You feel like reminding me?"

"How the fuck do you not-"

He takes his mug away, and when he can see me again I point to my damaged head. Not my fault I don't remember, I'm fucked up!

"Well shit, what do you remember?" 

"I remember you shoving me against the wall, and I remember you trying to cover up these." 

I point to the side of my neck that had Jason's replacement hickeys. 

"Jealous?"

"I am not jealous of your fucking hickeys."

"Obviously not, that's why you tried so hard to mark me up."

"In my defense, you told me to."

He's sitting cross legged on top of the rolling chair. He's wearing a white tank top, my flannel pants, and no socks. 

"I don't remember that, but I believe it."

"That's all you remember?"

"Yeah. The last thing I remember is having you in my lap over there on the floor." I spread my arms out along the top of the couch and try to get comfortable. I fell asleep in undone jeans, which is never the best thing to wake up to. 

"Shit, you don't remember anything."

He sets the coffee down and kicks my feet further apart, before dropping to his knees between my legs. He rests his elbows atop my thighs and grins. 

"Nothing at all ringing a bell?"

The only bell this is ringing is that of the dream I had.

Wait. 

He stands back up, using my legs as support, and checks out with his coffee. 

"There's a reason your pants are undone, dipshit."

As he walks out of the room and down the hallway, he calls out one more time. 

"Never done that before and probably never again."

I guess I must be a dipshit because it took me two whole minutes to realize that he'd sucked me off and I don't even remember it. 

Fuckin' hell, I can't remember anything...

As I stand up to follow Jason, blood rushes away from my head, and I collapse back into the couch. I feel like I'm hungover, but I know, for an absolute fact, that I haven't drank in days. Maybe it's because I haven't taken my painkillers or whatever, but I feel dizzy and sick to my stomach. 

I struggle back to my feet and zip my pants back up before leaving. Why Jason had to wake up so fucking early baffles me, Kirk and Lars are probably gonna be out until I get back from the damn consultation. I don't need a shirt to get coffee from the kitchen, do I? 

Well it's colder than shit in the kitchen, I should have probably taken it with me. 

"Here's your coffee, you psychopath. With no milk."

"Hot milk is disgusting."

"You're disgusting. You're drinking dirt water."

Jason smiles and slides the mug over to me. 

He did make it just how I do. Loads of sugar but with no milk. It's still hot though, really hot, burns me just a little. 

It makes me sad knowing that they're gonna fuck up my coffee in rehab. That's if they even decide to give me the glory of caffeine. 

"Six in the fucking morning, Newkid."

Jason smiles down at his shoes as he leans on the counter opposite of me. He's a little embarrassed, I can tell. But I think he got up this early to spend more time with me before I leave. 

"You're gonna have to drive me to the place."

"Hell no, I don't want you to see me cry."

"Shit dude, don't cry over me."

"Too fuckin' late, Het. I've been crying over you for days."

We both stay silent for a minute while he fights with his words. 

"I feel like a pussy," he says, running his fingers through his hair. 

I'm making Jason miserable again. Great. 

"We're all acting like pussies."

"I wish we could go with you, you know? I just think---I think that...we all kind of need some sort of help. Like-ha, like couples counseling but for all four of us."

"I think you're onto something."

"But I'm serious, I don't think you're the only person that needs help. We're fucked up, Het."

He raises his eyebrow up at me when he says, 'fucked'. I agree. Lars in particular rings my bell. 

"Maybe that's something you guys should do while I'm gone. We can fix everything before the album is done, and the tour won't be as painful as it could be."

"Finish up that coffee, Het. We need to clean you up."

He snickers as he walks past. 

"Newsted's special branding."

\----------

I sit and swirl the grains of sugar that didn't dissolve at the bottom of my cup while Jason looks through the drawers. He keeps lifting up the neck of a shirt, and looking back up at me, trying to figure out if it'll cover me up. 

"Why don't you just have me try 'em on?"

"Cuz you're not a little girl."

"You have to dress me anyway, just help me out."

"What do you mean I have to dress you?"

"I'm gonna fuck up my ribs."

"Oh, sure."

He stands up with one of my black polos, and before he reaches me, I toss back the thickened coffee-soaked sugar. 

"'I'm gonna fuck up my ribs,'" he mocks as he helps me stick my arms through. "Look, I don't like being treated like I'm five either, but I seriously don't wanna scrape my broken ribs against each other."

He pulls the shirt over my head and I pull it down to cover my stomach. 

"Can you see anything?" I ask. 

He looks me up and down for a bit until he reaches his verdict. "Yeah, I think that'll work. But you might wanna have a story prepared just in case." 

Fabricate a story? I couldn't. I'll start to believe it and forget that what happened happened. Because apparently, I'm good at believing lies. 

My own lies, no better. 

"Thanks, Newkid."

"'Course."

His hand lingers on my shoulder and his smile shows up to break my heart again. I leave his face for a second to find the clock, it's already seven. 

Jason's pained look makes my insides ache. I grab him and pull him against my chest again, maybe I can hug that pain away. 

 

Our hour in seven a.m. is somehow more draining than the last. Jason makes me eat something before we leave, and I really wish he didn't, because I have a terrible feeling that I'm going to vomit in his passenger's seat. That hangover feeling is even worse now, but now that and the addition of my sugary caffeine is making me a little jittery. Not good jitters. I find my leg bouncing and my fingers unable to resist scratching at my arms any chance they get. 

God, this isn't really much like a hangover. I'm not groggy, I'm...

Freaking out. 

What the fuck?

"What'cha got, man?" Jason looks to me while leaning his head back to take a drink from his Evian bottle. 

"I don't-..I don't know. I feel weird."

"Weird?"

"Like shaky n' shit. Like I'm about to flip out."

"Chill out, man. You're alright."

"I don't know if I am alright, this is weird."

"I think it's cuz you haven't drank, like withdrawal, y'know, the way Kirk got when he didn't have his fix?"

"Kirk got fuckin' crazy."

"I know he did. Still to this day I've never seen him act like that again."

"I wish I could be like that."

Jason pulls up on the barstool next to me. "What do you mean?" He asks, as he clasps his hands together and leans on his elbows. 

"He was just-..up and out of that addiction without any therapy or anything. Like-...he was fine. Automatically."

"Cuz of you."

"Me?"

"Yeah, he freaked out on you and you basically gave him enough tough love to mend him back into shape. You remember that don't you?"

I do. 

"Yeah, I do. Shit, Jason. He needs me." I might sound like a selfish prick, but I know we both know it's true. 

"Would it make you feel better if I promised you I'd take care of the two of them while you're gone?" He asks, and his thumbs fight with one another. I can tell that's a promise he wouldn't be able to keep. I've been babysitting Kirk for twelve years, he's mellow and sweet but he's a sensitive train wreck sometimes. Lars? Lars is just a fucking dickhead all around. I'm furious at him but I love him. He's my other half, like I've said. He's quite the handful though. Jason is not equipped to handle Lars on his own, I know that for sure. 

I just pray Jason is still sane when I get back. But if I know anything about Metallica, he's going to lose his mind the second the three of them are alone again. 

"You think you can handle them?"

"No, not at all. But I can try if it'll calm you down a little."

"They're gonna drive you up the fucking wall. They fight, all the time. Over stupid shit, over everything. When I'm gone I'll be one less thing they fight about. But I'm sure they'll find something else. They remind me of my parents."

"Mine too."

 

Eight o' clock rolls around and Jason's changed into jeans and a sweater. I don't like the look of it, it just refreshes the idea that we're supposed to be getting ready to leave. In the hour of eight, I shower, replace that shirt, lace up a pair of boots, and fold my jeans over them. I look decent, I suppose, save for my staples and my innumerable dings. 

Oh, who am I kidding. I look like shit. I feel like shit. I look as though I've been wrung through a bar fight with someone much bigger and stronger than myself. I look like I've gotten the shit kicked out of me. 

I hope they find the asshole that hit us and do what he did to us to him. 

Eye for an eye sort of shit. 

Break his ribs and his wrist, concuss him. Cut him open and take him away from his family. Install a breathalyzer in his car and take him to court. Forbid him from seeing his kids until he goes through the fucking twelve step program and gets his shit together. I hope they tell him what he did and I hope he fucking regrets it. I hope he drinks himself into a coma and vomits in his sleep so that he-

"Morning James," 

Kirk comes out of the back room, rubbing his eyes and stretching his shoulders. Kirk, thank god, just who I needed to see. He's messy haired and lethargic, and I'll be damned if it hasn't cheered me up. He's got on a tank top and boxers that are disheveled beyond belief. 

"Good Morning, Mister Hammett, you look lively."

"Fuck off," he mumbles, as he waddles into the kitchen to get his coffee. 

"It's only eight thirty, why are you all dressed up?" He asks, and I hear him shut the microwave. The coffee must have gotten cold. 

"We have to leave at nine-thirty," Jason says. 

Kirk seems to be too tired to get upset over those words. He just wants to get his coffee and watch TV with me on the couch. God, I hope he doesn't think too much this morning. "Damn." Is all he says as he waddles back to me and sits with me on the couch. He props his feet on the coffee table next to mine. Then there's boots and bare feet a top the fucked up table. 

"Lars still out?"

"Ah, who cares. He'll be up whenever you come back to pack your shit."

Kirk sounds passive. He's got quite the attitude toward Lars lately, and I've gotta say, I'm proud of him for standing up and puffing out his chest. Lars deserves to get a good fucking beating to set him straight, but I'm not gonna be the one to do it. It wouldn't mean anything coming from me. Kirk needs to do it. 

Disappointed I'll be gone to see him put Lars in his place. 

"You guys are coming back first, right?" 

"Yeah, whenever we get out."

 

It's nine and Kirk has finished his coffee and his nibbling on the edge of the mug. He keeps switching the TV back to the news to see if they've gotten any updates on the hit and run offender, but he's disappointed every time. 

Hearing Jason's keys rustle makes my nervous scratching and leg bouncing even more obvious. But Kirk doesn't say anything. 

"James, we should leave in a few minutes, I need to find this place."

He spins the ring of his keys around his finger a couple times and comes into my field of vision. He's dressed up, pretty nicely, for fuck's sake he looks nicer than me. I look even more like an addict now. 

"Alright."

As I stand up to leave, Kirk grabs at the hem of my polo. 

"Wait wait- you're coming back right?" 

"Yeah, it'll be a little while, but we'll be back."

"Then you're...then you're leaving?"

"I think so. I'll let you know what they say alright?" I ruffle his hair and stand back up to follow Jason. 

Kirk sinks into the couch. 

When we climb into Jason's truck, I barely remember the yellow envelope with all the documents, but Jason offers to fetch them. He takes quite a long time to go in and out, I can't help but think Kirk attached himself toJason's leg or something. But eventually he does come back and hands me that dreadful envelope. And we're off. 

 

"What's that paper say?"

"Take 2nd to Mission, and it's supposed to be a division of the Wellness Centre."

"Oh. Great."

 

\----------

I kind of wish I had made Jason wait in the car. 

"So the accident wasn't your fault from what I understand."

"Right. James wasn't the one who caused it."

"But you were still driving drunk, right?"

I nod but I don't look up from my lap. 

"See, that's where we run into a bit of a problem. If you hadn't been drinking, you would have seen the uh...the oncoming vehicle." 

No shit, lady. 

"I get that."

"Were you both drunk?" She asks, and she looks over toward Jason. I do not like the way she's looking at him. 

"Y-yeah, we both were."

"Alright, do you want to tell me about your drinking habits, both of you?"

I look at Jason to start. I don't want to tell this complete stranger my whole painful history, I've never liked that. How do I know I can trust her with it? I don't. I can't. 

"We drink a lot. It's not a pain numbing thing for me, we just...drink. It's a thing we've done for fifteen years and I never really thought much of it until recently."

"What was it like before the crash?"

"Uh..." 

Jason looks up at me, as if asking permission to tell her. I just nod in the doctor's direction and Jason continues, hesitantly. 

"It got bad about a week or two ago," 

The doctor looks at me. Great. 

"What happened a week or two ago, James?" 

I force down the lump in my throat before speaking. "I uh...I got, dumped, and.." 

"I thought it was my fault. I don't want to talk about it. But that's it. I thought it was my fault, and I kept hurting everyone, and then fucked up worse than I could have even imagined."

Her eyebrows are sewn upward with concern. 

"Not everything can be because of you."

"It was."

"James-" 

Jason sinks in his chair. 

"You don't have to tell me everything now, but I would recommend that you don't omit anything from the psychiatrist we're referring to you in Long Beach."

So I guess that's it. It's final. 

I'm leaving. 

"Alright."

Jason's breathing becomes unsteady. 

"Here's the directions, your referral, your medical files and the introduction packet to the Long Beach Addiction Recovery Center. From my understanding, you're supposed to install a breathalyzer before you drive down, so we've arranged for you to pick that up and have that installed...here."

She points to a location on the map. I'm pretty sure I'm good enough with cars not to ask someone else to install it for me, but I do not have the energy to argue. I feel like shit. 

"I would recommend that you get this done before tonight. You have to be in Long Beach by tomorrow afternoon."

"Alright."

"I'm really sorry it had to come to this. But I'm glad that you're getting the help you need."

Oh, fuck you. 

 

The withdrawal symptoms Jason mentioned are starting to get unbearable. I'm leaning on the wall of the body shop, Jason's talking but I can't hear a damn thing. My ears are ringing. 

"James?" 

"Yeah, sorry. Fuck."

"You alright man?"

"I don't think so. I still feel like shit."

"We'll be out of here in a while, just hold on, man."

\----------

Kirk has been sitting in my lap while I pack. I think it's kind of adorable, but I know he wouldn't be doing this if Lars were awake. I plan to leave at midnight, so unfortunately I'm not gonna be able to avoid Lars. 

But for now, I'm sitting cross legged on the floor, and Kirk is settled right on top. He's looking through the yellow envelope, and he pulls a paper out with the phone number to the Center. "Is this how I get to you?" He asks, holding the paper out to the side for me to see. 

"Yeah, but I'll probably have an extension or something. I'll call you first."

"Can I keep this anyway?" 

"Yeah, I don't see why not."

Jason is stuffing clothes into my travel bag that I brought not too long ago.

"I have no clue if this is enough. They didn't give, you know, like a general idea of how long you're gonna be gone."

"They don't want to say. They beat around the bush the whole time, they don't wanna tell me how long."

"It's probably gonna add up to for-fucking-ever." Kirk grumbles. 

"Is that a metric measurement?" 

He laughs and tells me to shut my mouth. 

\---

"Kirk, you're being a fucking drama queen."

Lars sinks into the recliner. Ever since he woke up he's been bullying Kirk into quitting his bitching, and I want nothing more than to kick his fucking teeth in. He needs to cut the shit. I want to think maybe he's acting like an asshole because he feels bad for throwing me under the bus, but in reality he's probably just acting like an asshole because he is an asshole. 

"Fuck off Lars, leave him alone."

"Not my fault he's being a drama queen."

Kirk seems to roll his eyes to brush it off and he goes back to focusing on Jason. 

I'm proud of him for brushing it off but I can already tell that Lars' shit attitude is only going to get worse without me as a buffer. For the love of God, if Lars keeps treating my Kirk like shit, I'm gonna come back down here, seven hours and all, and beat the fuck out of him. 

"So are you gonna have to go through detox?" Kirk asks, twisting on his counter stool. I turn backward in the couch to look at him. "Yeah. I think so. I feel like shit, Jason thinks it's withdrawal." 

"Withdrawal? What's happening?"

"Feel like I'm gonna puke, and my head is fuckin' killing me. Like a bad hangover but tweakier."

"That's withdrawal. You should get there sooner if that's what's going on...withdrawal fuckin' sucks."

Withdrawal does suck. But I think it's even sadder that I've never gone this long without alcohol because I've never experienced withdrawal before. 

I've been reliant on this for so, fucking, long. 

When I twist back around to face the TV, my skin tightens in my chest and my broken ribs scrape against one another. It's some of the worst pain I've ever..fucking..felt. 

I wince in pain and bite the inside of my cheek to stifle anything else that might of barreled out of me. 

 

\----------

I gave a lot of thought to what Kirk said. "You should leave earlier."

I think maybe I should. 

Being around Lars is doing nothing but making me angry. I hate to say it, but even Kirk is being annoying as all hell. He's visibly upset and he wants me to know that. Kirk is trying to guilt trip me now and that's giving my chest pain an extra little kick. 

It's four in the afternoon now and Lars has been an asshole the whole time he's out here. 

Kirk, getting annoyed, he starts to snap. 

Finally he gets to a breaking point at around four-thirty, and I know that I'm gonna have to leave. 

"You know what Kirk? You can get fucked. You're being a fucking girl about this shit and no one needs that."

Me and Jason are sharing the couch, exchanging a look as the two fight across from us. 

They're slinging curses from recliner to recliner. 

"I can get fucked? I can? You're being a dickhead and you're treating me like I'm in the wrong?" 

"I'm not the one being a fuckin' baby, Kirk. If you're gonna be all uppity and over dramatic about James leaving then you can..." 

Lars points his thumb behind him. 

"and you're completely unaffected?" Jason intervenes. Lars gives him a look, and it scares the living fuck out of me. I've seen him and that look before, it's the same way he used to look at Dave whenever he disapproved of something we did. 

"Of course this fuckin' affects me, Newsted. James is all we got here and he's going away-"

"And whose fucking fault is that?" 

Oh James, stop. Don't get into this now. 

Kirk looks up at me with heavy eyes and they urge me to keep going. 

"Excuse the fuck out of me, Het."

"May I remind you that it was your fucking word against mine to send me away, they believed you."

"You need the fucking help."

"I do. And I appreciate that. But don't go telling me that bullshit about leaving like it's my fucking fault."

"I think maybe you should get a fucking move on, James."

The heavy look in Kirk's eyes only amplify when the idea of me leaving early is presented to him. But right now it does nothing to me. I do want to get the fuck out of here and I don't even care if it's left on a bad note right now. 

Fuck you. 

"Fuck you."

I stand from the couch, and both Jason and Kirk scramble toward me. I'm just going to get my shit, then I'm checking the fuck out. 

I don't know if it's what Jason is saying or what Kirk isn't, but my soul is heavy. Even still it's not enough to keep me away from the tantalizing idea of being alone on the road. 

"James, fucking quit it!" Jason yells to me while I kick open the front door but it's not stopping me. 

I turn back and Lars is still sitting there in the fucking recliner completely unperturbed by everything that's happening. 

My knuckles strain tight and I lug the duffel bag into the back of Jason's truck. Both him and Kirk are still yelling to me. I keep trying to ignore their concern while tossing the yellow envelope into the passengers seat, but finally I think Jason shatters when I slam the back door shut and acknowledge their existence. 

Jason throws himself forward and pulls me against his chest. 

That's when everything slows down a little. 

I stand motionless for a second while he sobs against me and I make some painful eye contact with Kirk. I know I've probably said this this before, but this feels like a real turning point. I can hear the fucking violins and sad pianos while Jason cries against me. I'm being a dick because of Lars, and I know he's just doing what he needs to do to protect himself and Kirk. That's what this is really about. He couldn't fucking care less about Jason and I feel that in his hug. I feel that in the cast digging into my back and I feel that in Kirk's eyes. 

"It looks like rain.." Kirk starts. "do me a favor and drive safe, okay?" 

I nod to Kirk while I give Jason a pretty tight hug back. He hasn't let go of me, I don't want him to. I don't know what it's gonna be like here without me to kick Lars around if I need to. 

"I'm so sorry Newkid."

"No it's-" his hands finally slip away from me and he digs his heels into the dirt. Kirk decides it's his turn to leech onto me, so he wraps his skinny arms around my chest, under my arms. 

"It's okay. I'm alright."

"I know you are. I trust you guys."

"Trust us to what?"

"Take care of yourselves. I know you guys better than anyone, you're fine without me."

I know that's a fucking lie, and that's exactly my fucking problem. 

"I love you, man." 

I know Kirk just means 'I love you', not 'I love you, man', but he has to say 'man' more times than necessary because it's Kirk. 

I know I should say it back, but I don't. He knows. The fact that I'm leaving to keep them safe from this dark passenger I have inside me should be proof enough that I love them like family. 

Lars can suck my dick, right now. I'll think higher of him later but that piece of fucking garbage can get fucked for all I care. 

I give it two hours. 

Opening the driver's side door makes the scraping feeling of my ribs worse. Climbing into the truck gives me a headache. Breathing into that fucking tube to start the truck makes my lungs ache, gripping the steering wheel makes my hands shake. 

And none of that would have hurt so bad if Jason and Kirk weren't standing against the door, watching me, leaning against each other. 

Jason raises a hand to wave me goodbye and both he and Kirk give me a smile. 

I say goodbye, but I'm alone in the truck, now. 

And backing away the last thing I see is the front door of the studio shutting. 

 

\----------

 

The road is a lonely place. When there's no one there to sing to you or tell you about their shitty week. There's no one rolling down the window of the passenger's seat to flick away cigarette ashes or spit onto the road. There's no one propping their feet on the dashboard or screaming at you to test the boundaries of the speedometer. I can almost see them all. All three of them. Looking at the rear view mirrors, the backseat is empty without Kirk and Lars back there. This truck reminds me of nothing but the eighties when the four of us were carefree, long haired thrashers and nothing more. We didn't have to worry about that alcohol we drank from dawn til dusk, the only worry we had was making sure we had enough. I don't know when we started using the alcohol to drown feelings, but I can take a wild guess that Jason doesn't remember a time where the drinking was always fun. I know we drank to distract ourselves and remind us that we're still kids, we still have time before worrying about adult shit. 

Then Cliff died. 

Then we started replacing meals with beer because food doesn't make you feel better, beer does. Almost always. Then you overdo it and puke all over the back of the van and have to spend a Saturday cleaning out the whole thing. I still feel guilty for recruiting Jason into a broken ass mess of a band. He idolized us, we were his favorite band before we even knew who he was. And he must have been the happiest person alive to get to be with us 24/7. Little did he know how broken we really are. Surely he must have had some idea, we just lost a brother, and he saw how fucked up we were. He didn't bargain to be caught in between band drama. But here he is ten years later. Kirk could have bounced any time he wanted, too. But I know he's either too smart or too stupid to leave, depending on which way you look at it. 

The betrayal I feel from Lars makes me think about Dave again. 

God I really fucking ruined Dave's life. 

I hit the button on the cassette deck, and before I can even process what I'm doing, I hear a guitar slide. 

For fuck's sake, Jason left Turn The Page in here. 

Dave, right. Dave. I remember taking Dave to the bus stop in a truck like this one and trying to hide the fact that I was fucking weeping at the loss of a brother. And sometimes I wish I never listened to Lars, sometimes I wish that I never got rid of him. But if we hadn't, he wouldn't have Megadeth, and we wouldn't have Kirk. 

I know Dave is much happier around David than he could possibly be around us. He's a man that needs control and power, that's not something that we can offer him. 

'On a long and lonesome highway, east of Omaha,'

The map takes me down Exit 441 and I'm on my way out of San Rafael. 

Dave has been drowning problems with Whiskey for years. Probably since before we even picked him up. And somehow, he's happier than me now. I blame it one-hundred percent on David. He's his angelic bassist and I know for a fucking fact that I have one of those too. 

I do have one. 

I've got Jason and I need to appreciate him much more than I do. 

'Your thoughts will soon be wanderin', the way they always do,'

They have been. I'm all over the place right now. I guess I'm organizing things to tell the therapist so I can get some real help. 

I'm going to hate unraveling in front of tons of strangers. But I'm gonna have to grit my teeth and power through it, maybe they'll let me out early for good behavior and I can go back to my life. 

My family, my guitars, my tour. 

'Here I am, on the road again,' 

Kirk was right. The roof of the truck starts to quiver under heavy rain droplets. I turn on the windshield wipers to make sure I keep that promise to drive safe. 

'There I am, up on that stage.'

The road has become slippery pretty quick. Of course it has to rain, it's blinding rain too, and it'll probably rain until I get to Long Beach from the look of it. 

I'll get there at midnight, just about. So I guess taking my wallet was a good idea because a hotel is my destiny for tonight. 

'Here I go, playing star again,' 

It's going to be tough, and it's going to hurt me. And break me. Everything that I've wrung myself through never killed me but it seems to have taken quite the toll on my brain. 

Now I'm praying to God that I get out alive. 

'There I go,

Turn the page.'


End file.
